Teen Pregnancy Grants are now at the center of a growing public health fight after the Trump administration terminated millions of dollars in federal funding for programs designed to help young people make informed choices about sex, pregnancy, STIs, and reproductive health.
The Department of Health and Human Services cut 53 Teen Pregnancy Prevention grants worth about $67 million, ending funding two years before the grants were scheduled to expire. According to Stateline, HHS confirmed that it canceled 53 out of 67 grants under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, with affected grantees including universities, community groups, city and state health departments, and Planned Parenthood affiliates in states including Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Texas, and West Virginia.
The grants were part of a program housed under the HHS Office of Population Affairs. The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program is a national, evidence based grant program that funds organizations working to prevent teen pregnancy across the United States. The program also supports efforts connected to STI prevention and positive youth health behaviors.
HHS said the terminated grants no longer aligned with the agency’s priorities. According to The Hill, most of the grants were terminated because HHS said they “normalized or promoted sexual activity for minors.” That framing is already raising concerns among public health advocates who say medically accurate sexual health education does not encourage teens to have sex, but gives them tools to understand risk, consent, contraception, disease prevention, and when to seek care.
The issue gets even more serious when looking at the timing. According to the CDC, provisional 2025 data showed the teen birth rate dropped 7 percent to 11.7 births per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19, with both younger and older teen groups reaching record lows. The agency also says quality sexual and reproductive health services, including counseling to prevent risky behaviors, contraception services, and STI services, are important for adolescent health and wellbeing.
That is why the Teen Pregnancy Grants cut could be problematic. If funding disappears before programs can adjust, teens may lose access to trusted educators, referrals, clinics, and prevention resources. For young people in communities where transportation, insurance, stigma, or family pressure already make health care harder to reach, losing free programming can widen the gap.
One Philadelphia organization, AccessMatters, is already sounding the alarm. According to AccessMatters President and CEO Ayana Bradshaw said her organization received a notice canceling its .2 million grant on June 26, effective immediately. Bradshaw said HHS accused the organization of “normalizing adolescent sexual activity that 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.”
Bradshaw said HHS specifically cited the “Be Proud, Be Responsible” curriculum, which The Hill described as a program designed to give adolescents knowledge, motivation, and skills to reduce their risk of contracting HIV. AccessMatters’ broader network connects adults and teens in Southeastern Pennsylvania with no cost or low cost family planning services, including STI testing and treatment, HIV testing, birth control counseling, pregnancy testing, and emergency contraception.
Bradshaw called the loss “extremely detrimental to the Philadelphia youth who deserve to be able to receive evidence-based information,” according to The Hill. She added, “There’s no way of doing this programming without these dollars … we were in fact following what was required of us, and we are saddened by the impact that this is going to have on young people.”
The Teen Pregnancy Grants shift also includes new funding opportunities. An HHS official said the reclaimed money will be redirected into two new grant opportunities. One, titled “Replicating Effective Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs,” will award a total of $63.4 million. According to the federal grants listing, the program is meant “to support replication of effective programs that provide adolescents with medically accurate, age-appropriate education and counseling that help them understand their bodies, clarify reproductive life goals, and make informed health decisions.”
The second opportunity focuses on evaluations of interventions “focused on body literacy and ensuring transparency and protection of parental rights for future replication by adolescent health practitioners and youth-serving professionals.” A federal grants listing says that opportunity is expected to make about $8.3 million available for nine awards.
On paper, HHS says the money is still connected to adolescent health. The concern is what happens when programs that were already operating are shut down immediately, then replaced with grants that require applicants to meet a new alignment review. According to Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin health programs abruptly lost more than $1 million in annual grant funding, and one nonprofit leader said the new direction was “completely in contradiction to the spirit” of their teen health program.
There is also legal history here. According to Reuters, a federal judge in 2025 blocked an HHS policy that would have required recipients of Teen Pregnancy Prevention grants to revise programs to comply with Trump executive orders tied to diversity, equity, inclusion, and transgender issues. The judge said the policy was too vague and found that HHS had not provided enough explanation for the change.
HHS previously told recipients their curricula must “reflect the immutable biological reality of sex, not radical gender ideology, and may not promote anti-American ideologies such as discriminatory equity ideology.” A federal judge later blocked that directive after Planned Parenthood affiliates in California, Iowa, and New York sued.
The Trump administration has been here before. According to an Associated Press report republished by Gov1, a federal judge issued a permanent injunction in 2018 blocking HHS from ending five year Teen Pregnancy Prevention grants two years early. In that ruling, the judge wrote that HHS “arbitrarily and capriciously terminated” the program.
For families, the debate is bigger than politics. Teen Pregnancy Grants fund real life work that often happens quietly in classrooms, clinics, community centers, and youth programs. That can include conversations about delaying sex, recognizing unhealthy relationships, preventing HIV and STIs, understanding contraception, and knowing where to go when something feels wrong. When those services get caught in an ideological fight, young people can end up with fewer safe places to ask questions.
The most problematic part is the immediate disruption. Even if new grants eventually replace the old ones, organizations may lose staff, cancel sessions, pause referrals, and scramble for private funding in the meantime. Teens who were already participating may not know where to turn next. Parents who wanted medically accurate support may lose a trusted partner. Communities with fewer clinics may feel the loss first.
The Teen Pregnancy Grants controversy now sits at the intersection of public health, parental rights, political ideology, and youth access. HHS says it wants programs aligned with its priorities. Health advocates say evidence based education is what helps teens avoid pregnancy, prevent infections, and make informed decisions. The fight now is over who gets to define what “age appropriate” means, and whether young people will still have access to the information they need while adults argue over the language.
