Heidi Group founder and anti-abortion activist Carol Everett is battling the federal government over the future of federal family planning funding. In a lawsuit, she is asking for a guarantee that her new group will be eligible for Title X money during the next funding cycle—regardless of subsequent court rulings or the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Now a scathing response filed by the federal government argues that the suit has “no logical limit.”
Last year, Everett applied for millions of dollars in Title X funding for the Heidi Group—the same organization that, months before, lost multimillion-dollar contracts with the state of Texas for failing to serve tens of thousands of patients. Shortly after the application was denied, Everett started Vita Nuova, which she describes as a “Christian, pro-life organization that provides health-care services to women,” much like the Heidi Group. She then sued the federal government to ensure that even if different rules are in place, Vita Nuova could receive Title X money in spring 2021.
In a response filed earlier this month requesting a dismissal of the complaint, the federal government said that the case has “no less than three levels of speculation.” Government attorneys wrote that under Everett’s rationale, “anyone could challenge any past regulation that no longer exists, or even hypothetical future regulations that could be promulgated (but have not been), on the theory that they need certainty regarding how the world might look more than a year from now.”
