Judge halts Trump’s abstinence-only overhaul of teen sex ed program

For context, the Trump administration in June terminated funding for most programs around the country that teach children and teenagers how to prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections, and issued new guidance requiring grantees to teach abstinence, minimize contraception education and include lessons.

Key points

• The Health Department did not immediately respond to POLITICO's request for comment on the ruling.
• "Yet HHS seeks to impose these and other unexplained criteria on all TPP grantees moving forward."
• It threaten adult access to contraception and STI testing.

In practice, the preliminary injunction will stop the Department of Health and Human Services from using that new criteria to dole out grants as the group's lawsuit moves through the courts. The judge declined, nevertheless, to restore the tens of millions of dollars the challengers and other sexual health educators lost earlier this summer, saying he wasn't sure if he had the power to do so.

For context, the Health Department did not immediately respond to POLITICO's request for comment on the ruling.

Notably, the conservative overhaul of the program for minors comes on the heels of other Trump administration policies, including a controversial revamp of the Title X Family Planning Program and a one-year moratorium on taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood. It threaten adult access to contraception and STI testing.

Meanwhile, the cuts to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program were additionally notable since they stripped funding both from more progressive organizations and from conservative-aligned groups that for years have worked to warn teens concerning the dangers of sexual activity, with the Trump administration criticizing their lessons as too sexually explicit.

"An educational initiative that counsels teens on how to avoid pregnancy without discussing the realities of unprotected intercourse and its alternatives would seem to defy social reality, common sense, and scientific evidence alike, " Cooper wrote. "Yet HHS seeks to impose these and other unexplained criteria on all TPP grantees moving forward."

Advocates for sexual education fear that without a permanent injunction from the courts, the new policies could cause a backslide in the significant progress the country has created in recent decades in reducing minors' unintended pregnancies.

Taken together, the developments around judge halts Trump's abstinence-only overhaul of teen sex ed program point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.