Whether a federal agency can impose funding conditions on states under the Spending Clause when the underlying statute is ambiguous

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Title X funds cannot be “used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.” 42 U.S.C. § 300a—6. And the Weldon Amendment prohibits any “Federal agency or program” from subjecting “any institutional... health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not... refer for abortions.” Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-447, div. F, § 508(d)(1), 118 Stat. 2809, 3163 (2004). Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has stripped all funds from Oklahoma’s Title X program because the Oklahoma State Department of Health has declined to refer women for abortions after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022). The Questions Presented Are: 1. Whether a federal agency, through regulations, can impose upon states a funding condition that satisfies the Spending Clause when the underlying statute does not contain or is ambiguous as to that condition. 2. Whether the Weldon Amendment prohibits the federal government from requiring a state’s health department to provide abortion referrals.