Gay avuane

One of more than 3, federal family-planning clinics nationwide, Haven serves both English and Spanish speakers, providing contraception, testing for pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and cervical cancer screening, all at low cost or without charge to patients who are anxious, impoverished, or both.

Those patients include teenage girls — under 18 gay avuane seeking birth control pills or long-acting contraception. But under a startling court decision issued in Decembera federal judge ruled that such clinics violate Texas state law and federal constitutional rights, effectively cutting off a vital source of health care for young women across Texas.

Women's health advocates and health care providers alike have decried the decision by a conservative judge appointed by President Donald Trump who is at the center of other reproductive rights cases. They say it is overly broad and unprecedented. The ruling applies to the national regulations, but for now is followed only in Texas.

District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk has had a chilling effect on care. And we couldn't do it because she was Texas law has long required that teenage girls have a parent's permission to get prescription contraception. But under the federal program Title Xcertain clinics could provide contraception without parental consent.

Established inTitle X evolved out of the "War on Poverty" era and passed with broad bipartisan support. The legislation was signed by then-President Richard Nixon, a Republican, to provide family-planning services to low-income people, including minors, with the goal of reducing teen pregnancy.

But in Julyweeks after the Supreme Court rescinded constitutional protection for abortion gay avuane Dobbs v.

Deandaa father of three adolescent daughters who lives in Amarillo, sued the Department of Health and Human Services. He argued that the government had violated his constitutional right to direct the upbringing of his children. In his suit, Deanda, a Christian, said he was "raising each of [his] daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality" and that he could have no "assurance that his children will be unable to access prescription contraception" that "facilitate sexual promiscuity and premarital sex.

In his gay avuane, Kacsmaryk agreed, writing that "the use of contraception just like abortion violates traditional tenets of many faiths, including the Christian faith plaintiff practices. Moreover, Kacsmaryk, who is a Christiansaid the existence of federal clinics operating in Texas, where state law otherwise requires parental permission for teenage girls to receive contraception, posed an "immediate, present-day injury.

The decision, which referenced Catholic catechisms and fourth-century religious text, stunned legal experts like Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who said it was part of the rising influence of conservative Christian theology in the courts.

Neither Deanda nor his attorney, Jonathan Mitchell, the architect of Texas' pre- Dobbs abortion ban, responded to requests for comment. The effects of teenage pregnancy on the arc of a woman's life can be profound. Teen births can lead to poor outcomes for the next generation: Children of teenage mothers are more likely to drop out of high school and end up in jail or prison during adolescence.

Stephen Griffin, an assistant professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and a practicing OB-GYN, described access to birth control for young women as a "safety issue," adding that many parents underestimate their gay avuane sexual activity. Texas has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the nation and the highest rate of repeat teen pregnancy — more than 1 in 6 teenagers who gave birth in Texas in already had a child.

Health experts say the court decision banning access to contraception is likely to increase those numbers, following on the heels of other restrictions on reproductive health care in the state. Kids aren't getting comprehensive sexual education in schools. A vast [number] of folks in Texas are living without health insurance," said Stephanie LeBleu, acting director of Every Body Texas, which administers the state's more than Title X clinics.

The Biden administration appealed the Texas decision in February. In the meantime, LeBleu said, there is no safety net left here for teens. And it robs them of their bodily autonomy, and I think young people are more than capable of making decisions gay avuane their own health care.

Decades of research shows that teens are more likely to seek sexual health care if they can do so confidentially.