Dems say Trump is defying court order by pushing abstinence programs

A group of Democratic senators is accusing President Trump of trying to undermine the Obama-era Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program in defiance of a court order.

Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii) and Patty Murray (Wash.) wrote in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Alex Azar obtained by NBC News that they are concerned “about the Trump Administration’s ongoing attempts to undermine the evidence-based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.”

{mosads}The senators say in the letter that the Trump administration has directed funds toward programs that undercut the  initiative, which funds programs that work to prevent teen pregnancy. Conservatives criticized it for funding programs that teach how to use contraception in addition to abstinence.

They note in the letter that HHS recently awarded more than $21 million to the Mitre Corporation for abstinence research.

“By attempting to direct funding in accordance with ideological goals, rather than towards the development of evidence-based practices, the Trump-Pence Administration is undoing years of progress towards supporting adolescent sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing,” the senators write.

The Trump administration in 2017 moved to make cuts to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.

A federal judge earlier this year ruled those cuts unlawful, ordering HHS to process the applications of four organizations whose funding through the program had been targeted for termination.