A Catastrophe for Public Health and Law

摘要

The us court of appeals for the ninth circuit has long been sensitive to the role of courts in safeguarding individuals from threats to their health and well‐being posed by potentially unlawful governmental policy. Thus, it came as no surprise that when the Trump administration issued its final Title X “gag” rule,1 most of the legal challenges were filed in Ninth Circuit trial courts. The rule would compel physicians to withhold essential information from patients regarding termination of pregnancy and would bar funding to any clinic that does not maintain complete physical separation between activities allowed and those (including full counseling and appropriate referrals) that the rule treats as promoting abortion.