Trump Cuts Anti-Teen Pregnancy Grants

Teen pregnancy prevention programs which are deemed ineffective by President Donald Trump’s administration will lose more than $200 million in funding. The administration has cut the five-year grants after only three years.

"Given the very weak evidence of positive impact of these programs, the Trump administration, in its ... 2018 budget proposal, did not recommend continued funding for the TPP program," the department statement said.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has said that the program has been instrumental in pushing the teen pregnancy rate to an all-time low.

Rachel Fey of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy said that the teen birth rate fell by about 40 per cent since the program went into effect in 2010. "We know so little about the rationale behind cutting short these grants,” said Fey.

However, a spokesman of the Health and Human Services department said that only four out of the 37 programs showed lasting positive impacts.

A letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price signed by 37 Democratic senators called the decision short-sighted. Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grantees served a half-million youth from 2010 to 2014 and would have served an additional 1.2 million youth till 2019 when the grant was scheduled to end, the senators said.

Here are some of the programs that will lose money:

The North Texas Alliance to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy in Teens, one of more than 80 current grantees around the country, will lose just under $1 million a year, about three-quarters of its budget.

Vermont-based Youth Catalytics will lose its $2.8 million federal grant.

Quest for Change will lose 87 per cent of its total budget.

These programs help teenagers learn about sexuality and provide a comfortable environment for them to ask questions they may have.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has urged the administration "not to turn back the clock" on progress. Thirty per cent of teen girls who have dropped out of high school cite pregnancy or parenthood as a reason, according to the Congressional Research Service.

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