The organization is suing Trump administration official Valerie Huber for using the country’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program funds to promote “sexual risk avoidance.”\
On Friday, Planned Parenthood announced it would be suing Valerie Huber, the Department of Health and Human Services official instrumental in promoting the Trump administration’s abstinence-only agenda.
In the suit, Planned Parenthood attorneys argue that both Huber’s and HHS Secretary Alex Azar’s radical remaking of the country’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP) to prioritize an “abstinence-only-until-marriage” and “sexual risk avoidance” curriculum takes too dramatic a turn from what the program was meant to do in the first place: use scientifically-supported and evidence-based approaches to curb teen pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood says it’s unlawful to put the federal funds toward a mission so divorced from what they were originally intended for. If a judge rules in the organization’s favor, it would effectively safeguard TPPP against any ideologically-driven attacks.
“Valerie Huber has a long record of pushing ineffective and harmful abstinence-only programs. Now she’s inflicting her agenda on the nation’s young people,” Sonya Norsworthy, the interim vice president of education at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, tells Broadly in a statement.
“We’ve seen firsthand how information, education and resources empower young people to plan their futures and stay healthy,” she continues. “Abstinence-only programs are not only ineffective, they shame and stigmatize LGBTQ youth and survivors of sexual assault.”
Huber previously served as the president of Ascend, formerly known as the National Abstinence Education Association, for a decade before taking up her post in HHS. A rare shift within the department in March gave her complete control over over who and what the country’s $260 million in family-planning funds go toward.
Read the full story at Broadly
