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

Sex Education, ,

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.

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State Library Board Advances Rules to Protect Children from Explicit Material

Decency, , , ,
Above: The book It’s Perfectly Normal sits on display in the children’s section of the Craighead County Public Library in Jonesboro in this file photo from 2024. The book contains inappropriate illustrations depicting nudity and sexual activity.

Last week, the Arkansas State Library Board advanced a proposal to help protect children from sexually explicit material in public libraries.

Arkansas is home to many public libraries all across the state, and the library board helps oversee them. But in recent years, parents and policymakers alike have expressed serious concerns about obscene and explicit children’s books that some librarians have placed on the shelves of their local libraries.

At its May 8 meeting, the Arkansas Library Board unanimously approved a proposed set of rules requiring public libraries to ensure children under the age of 16 may not check out sexually explicit materials without parental consent.

Under the rules, libraries would also keep explicit material separate from other areas of the library, and could not knowingly advertise explicit material. Libraries that fail to abide by the rules may not receive state funding.

These proposed library rules are a step in the right direction, because too many libraries in Arkansas have made headlines for promoting sexually explicit material to young children.

For example, the Jonesboro public library has been at the center of multiple controversies over its decision to place books with sexually explicit images in its children’s section and for failing to adopt a policy that separates sexual material from children’s books.

The library even went so far as to post on Facebook that it isn’t the library’s responsibility to protect kids from obscenity.

The controversy in Jonesboro escalated to a point that voters finally decided to reduce the library’s millage in 2022.

Other public libraries in Arkansas have included explicit children’s books in their catalogs and failed to separate sexual material from children’s material as well. Some of these books actually contain explicit images of minors engaged in sexual acts.

Families should not have to worry about what their children might see in the children’s section of a library, and taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize library material that is explicit or obscene. These new rules from the State Library Board could help address those concerns.

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

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Lessons Learned: Why “Safe Sex” Messaging Failed

Sex Education,

For decades, public health campaigns promoted “safe sex” as the key to preventing sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies, and state and federal officials spent millions of dollars teaching comprehensive sex education to students. But evidence shows that despite the massive investment, STD rates and teen pregnancy rates have remained high.

After his election in 2008, President Obama’s administration gave Planned Parenthood millions of dollars in funding for comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention programs.

Experts later found students who went through Planned Parenthood’s sex education programs were often more likely to become pregnant or cause a pregnancy.

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

In 2016, researchers evaluating similar Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs around the country found the programs did not really change students’ behavior, writing:

Many of the [Teen Pregnancy Prevention program] evaluations saw positive impacts on measures such as knowledge and attitudes; however, these findings did not translate into positive behavioral changes.

In 2016 — while President Obama was still in office — the CDC released a 208-page report concluding teenagers who practiced abstinence were healthier in nearly every way than teenagers who were sexually active.

The CDC’s report looked at everything from seatbelt and bike helmet use to substance abuse, diet, exercise, and even tanning bed use.

Their conclusion was that sexually active teens were less healthy and engaged in riskier behavior across the board.

The Christian alternative to comprehensive sex education is a virtue‑based paradigm rooted in Scripture: “Flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18) and “Let marriage be held in honor among all” (Hebrews 13:4).

Purity and faithfulness are not fringe ideas but biblical truths that protect body, mind, soul, and community. That is a message that endures where education and messaging fail.

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

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