On August 27, 2026, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell co-led a coalition of 22 attorneys general in suing the Trump administration to block unlawful grant conditions that threaten to strip federal funding for family planning services from states and providers. The lawsuit challenges new requirements imposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for the next five-year Title X grant cycle. Title X is the nation’s only federal grant program specifically dedicated to family planning and related preventive health services, including contraception, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and pregnancy testing and counseling. 

In July 2026, HHS issued a new funding notice requiring Title X applicants to align their programs with administration priorities, many of which are contrary to patient-centered health care principles, as a condition of receiving or maintaining federal funding. According to the coalition, the new conditions would require providers to eliminate certain diversity, equity, and inclusion practices; alter services for transgender patients; discourage contraceptive use in favor of natural family planning; and counsel patients toward marriage and parenthood rather than providing neutral, patient-centered counseling. 

The potential consequences are significant, particularly for low-income and uninsured patients who may have few other options for care. The impact of other ideologically motivated restrictions during the first Trump administration illustrates the potential scale of the harm: the previous Title X rule caused nearly one-quarter of participating providers nationwide to leave the program, a loss of 981 clinics that jeopardized contraceptive care for roughly 1.6 million patients. Nationwide, the number of patients served by Title X fell by more than 60% in just two years. 

The state coalition argues that existing Title X requirements mandate access to a broad range of contraceptive methods, nondirective counseling, and inclusive and nondiscriminatory services. They further contend that HHS imposed the new conditions without the required notice-and-comment process and that several requirements are impermissibly vague or unrelated to the purposes of the Title X program. The coalition is asking the court to declare the new conditions unlawful, block HHS from enforcing them, and preserve Title X funding for state health agencies and other qualified providers under the program’s existing rules.

We fought to protect Title X during the first Trump administration, and today we are going back to court to defend it again. The administration keeps trying to use federal funding to force states to carry out its agenda, and time and again, we have stopped them. They may think the eighth time will be the charm, but New York will keep fighting back and protecting every patient’s right to access the care they need.Attorney General Letitia James