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A divided federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s decision blocking the enforcement in Maryland of Trump administration rules that prohibit taxpayer-funded family planning clinics in the Title X program from making abortion referrals. The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an existing permanent injunction. It wrote that the administration’s rules “failed to recognize and address the ethical concerns of literally every major medical organization in the country” and “arbitrarily estimated the cost” of implementing part of the rules. (Rankin, 9/3)

At issue in the case is the federal family planning program known as Title X. Baltimore’s mayor and City Council challenged the restrictions in April 2019, saying the provisions jeopardized the relationship between physicians and their patients by limiting the information doctors could provide even when a patient had stated her intention to terminate a pregnancy. Under the rule issued last year, the Department of Health and Human Services banned health centers that provide abortions — or refer patients for abortions — from receiving any money from the 50-year-old program, which primarily serves low-income women. (Marimow, 9/3)

The ruling applies just to Maryland, but it creates a split in the judiciary — the 9th Circuit previously allowed the funding restrictions to move forward. That makes it more likely the Supreme Court will take up challenges to the Trump rules. (Miranda Ollstein, 9/3)

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is facing criticism for a letter he and a group of 20 Republican senators sent to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Tuesday that said pregnancy is “not a life-threatening illness” as they push to remove the abortion pill Mifeprex from the market. “The abortion pill does not cure or prevent any disease. Make no mistake, Mifeprex is a dangerous pill,” Cruz said in a tweet Wednesday. (Thompson, 9/3)

According to a copy of the letter provided exclusively to National Review, the senators applaud the FDA for instituting and attempting to enforce safety protocols around the chemical-abortion pill, also known as RU-486 or Mifeprex. During the COVID-19 pandemic, abortion advocates and providers have undertaken a legal campaign to alter the FDA’s Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy for the abortion pill, which requires that a health-care professional prescribe the drug to women in person rather than via telemedicine. The pandemic, they argue, has made it more difficult for women to obtain chemical-abortion drugs and therefore that the FDA safety protocols are a violation of the supposed right to abortion. (DeSanctis, 9/1)