Trump Administration Is Being Sued For Ending Funding for Teen Pregnancy Programs

– blogged by @lanaladonna

Planned Parenthood, along with eight other government health care and advocacy organizations, have teamed up to take on the Trump administration for taking away grants for national teen pregnancy programs.

According to The Washington Post, the groups filed four separate lawsuits in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Washington, in Maryland and the District of Columbia.

They are arguing that approximately $220 million in grants was wrongfully terminated.

The Obama-era Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPP) was created to conduct scientific research into what works best to lower teen pregnancy rates.

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Upon creation, TPP was supposed to be a five- year program, but it was reported that the program would be discontinued at the end of June 2018, ending the program two years early.

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Details of the real motive behind the termination have yet to be released, but it is being seen as a way for social conservatives to restrict women’s reproductive rights, in an effort to control access to abortions and contraceptives.

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The Washington Post also reports that the attorneys from Planned Parenthood, Democracy Forward, and Public Citizen are accusing officials of attempting to illegally end the program based on ideological motives, as opposed to science.

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In an interview, Carrie Y. Flaxman, deputy director for public policy litigation for Planned Parenthood said the program has gotten positive feedback and should be expanded, not cut back.

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“The program has been widely praised as models for kind of the best practices for teen pregnancy prevention across the country,” said Flaxman. “HHS has no authority to terminate the contracts” or the overall program, she said, calling the decision “arbitrary and capricious.”

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Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit argues that the decision to end funding for the program goes against the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) rules that mandate funding to “medically accurate and age-appropriate programs that reduce teen pregnancy.”

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“HHS is not at liberty to ignore the clear statutory mandate in favor of programs that are more in line with its ideological objectives. Nor may it make religiously-motivated and coercive spending decisions,” the lawsuits state.

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HHS has released official statements to the media claiming that the program has “weak evidence of positive impacts,” and that the program was “a poor use of…taxpayer dollars.

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These organizations filing lawsuits against the Trump Administration are efforts by those who oppose to seek help from the judicial system.

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No further updates on the lawsuits have been released.