US Law Doesn’t Preempt Texas’ Teen Birth Control Notice Rule

Taxpayer-funded family planning providers must tell Texas parents when their children seek birth control and other services, the Fifth Circuit said Tuesday.

A US rule intended to allow teenagers to access contraceptives confidentially doesn’t preempt a Texas law that gives parents the right to consent to their children obtaining the service, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said. A family planning provider that receives federal money under Title X can comply with both the state and federal rule, the court said.

“Title X’s goal (encouraging family participation in teens’ receiving family planning services) is not undermined by Texas’s goal (empowering parents to consent to their teen’s receiving contraceptives),” the court said. “To the contrary, the two laws reinforce each other,” it said.

The court said that upholding the rule, which requires family planning providers to encourage parents’ participation in their children’s family planning decisions to “the extent practicable,” would nullify Alexander Deanda’s state-created right to consent to his children’s medical care. It didn’t reach the father’s additional argument that he has a similar right under the federal constitution.

Title X of the Public Health Service Act created the only federal program that supports family planning services, especially for low-income people. This case was being closely watched by reproductive rights groups, which saw the lawsuit as a stepping stone to overturning federal precedent interpreting the US Constitution as guaranteeing access to contraception.

The Fifth Circuit’s reluctance to address the federal constitutional argument probably decreases the odds that the US Supreme Court will review it, although question already has been presented to the top court in a gender-affirming care case.

The court disagreed with district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on one point. The judge, who sits in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, partially vacated a rule that prohibited family planning providers from notifying parents to obtain their consent for services offered to the minors. That rule wasn’t in effect when Deanda filed his original complaint, and Kacsmaryk’s summary judgment order didn’t address its validity or preemptive effect, Duncan said in reversing that portion of the district judge’s ruling.

Chief Judge Priscilla Richman and Judge Catharina Haynes joined.

The US Department of Justice represents Becerra. Jonathan Mitchell of Austin represents Deanda.

The case is Deanda v. Becerra, 5th Cir., No. 23-10159, 3/12/24.