{"id":179391,"date":"2018-02-20T02:05:38","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T07:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=179391"},"modified":"2018-02-20T16:39:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T21:39:29","slug":"planned-parenthood-hhs-sex-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/planned-parenthood-hhs-sex-ed\/","title":{"rendered":"Planned Parenthood sues HHS for halting funds for ineffective sex ed programs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Despite the fact that a five year study of some of the sex education programs Planned Parenthood promotes have proven them ineffective — even counterproductive — the abortion corporation is suing the Trump Administration<\/a> because the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) pulled grant money from these failed programs.\u00a0The Washington Post reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood\u00a0has joined forces with\u00a0eight other\u00a0local government, health care, and\u00a0advocacy organizations\u00a0to take the Trump administration to court over the defunding of a national teen\u00a0pregnancy\u00a0program\u2026. The groups filed four separate lawsuits in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Washington, in Maryland and the District of Columbia, arguing that approximately\u00a0$220 million in grants was wrongfully terminated.\u00a0The Obama-era\u00a0Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPP) was created by Congress to conduct rigorous scientific research into what approaches work to lower teen pregnancy rates and try to provide the\u00a0best ones to at-risk youths.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An NPR story<\/a>, which clearly writes in support of the sex ed programs, notes<\/a>\u00a0that “the Planned Parenthood chapter, along with eight other groups<\/a>, is suing HHS, saying it acted unlawfully when it canceled their five-year grants midstream and with no explanation.”\u00a0However, the NPR story actually goes on to explain<\/a> why the funding was pulled:<\/p>\n

An HHS spokeswoman said the agency ended the program because it’s not effective.<\/p>\n

“Teen birth rates have been declining since 1992 and less than 1 percent of the teen population has been served by TPP,” the spokeswoman, who declined to be named, said in an email. “Of the 37 projects funded and evaluated for a 2016 report, 73 percent had no impact or had a negative impact on teen behavior.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The lawsuit is a “Complaint For Declaratory and Injunctive Relief” and asserts, among other complaints, that HHS’s decision was “arbitrary and capricious,” not giving a reason for the termination. The complaint also argues that “[p]laintiffs are replicating proven evidence-based pregnancy prevention programs and engaged in empirical research of new and innovative pregnancy prevention programs.”<\/p>\n

But whether or not the programs are proven to be evidence-based certainly doesn’t mean they are effective, as Live Action News reported in late 2016<\/a>, after a five-year study<\/a> from the HHS, evaluating its own funded programs. HHS funds these programs and sought to report on the success rates of their implementation, and despite them being implemented by-the-book, the results were lackluster, showing that most programs produced no statistically significant change in teen sexual behavior. Further, some of the results showed an increase in the very behaviors the programs sought to prevent.<\/p>\n