Trump Administration Cuts Millions of Dollars to Planned Parenthood Sex-Education Programs

Late last month the Trump administration moved to eliminate millions of dollars in grant money to Planned Parenthood and other organizations teaching comprehensive sex-education to teens.

The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program traces its roots back to former President Obama in 2010. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded federal grant money to “evidence-based programs” designed to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Under the program, organizations — including Planned Parenthood — were able to apply for federal funds to teach these teen pregnancy prevention programs.

But evaluations showed the programs generally turned out to be either ineffective or counterproductive.

For example, Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest received $4 million to teach teen pregnancy prevention. An official evaluation later found that students were actually more likely to become pregnant after going through Planned Parenthood’s program — not less.

In other words, Planned Parenthood’s multimillion dollar sex-education program did exactly the opposite of what it was intended to do.

On June 26, HHS announced it would not renew most of the pregnancy prevention grants offered under this program.

The Daily Signal obtained a cancellation letter saying after reviewing the teen pregnancy prevention curricula, HHS “believes that some curricula normalize adolescent sexual activity and are not age appropriate, as they contain overly sexually explicit or pornographic content that is not necessary to achieve the TPP program’s statutory mission.”

The grant money comes to a total of $67 million.

Arkansas knows from experience that Planned Parenthood’s comprehensive sex-education is not the way to go.

In the 1980s and 1990s, public officials in Arkansas promoted comprehensive sex-education, but the programs failed to have a meaningful impact on teen pregnancy and abortion in the state.

But in 1997 the Arkansas Legislature and Governor Mike Huckabee began promoting abstinence education in Arkansas.

From 1997 to 2005, Arkansas’ teen birthrate decreased 17%, and Arkansas’ teen abortion rate plummeted a staggering 48%.

Governor Huckabee’s abstinence education model was so successful in Arkansas that it drew national recognition.

Given all of this, it seems like the Trump administration is making the right call by cancelling these teen pregnancy prevention grants.

The Daily Signal says that besides canceling these grants to Planned Parenthood and other organizations, “HHS announced two new grant opportunities that promote body literacy in place of radical gender ideology, abortion, and contraception. The opportunities will ‘focus on programs that do not promote material that depicts, describes, exposes, or presents obscene, indecent, or sexually explicit content, including content that normalizes or promotes sexual activity for minors.'”

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.