7.29.26 – The Washington Stand
“Trump Defunds the Left’s Graphic Sex Ed – Supports Lessons on Marriage, Family”
By Suzanne Bowdey
Excerpts from this article:
Americans have been so busy fighting against radical gender ideology and critical race theory (CRT) in schools that one of the Left’s favorite ways to undermine parents has fallen under the radar.
However, the Trump administration hasn’t lost sight of graphic sex education; and parents everywhere should be grateful to him.
In a very underreported move, the President’s team went on the offensive this summer, cancelling millions of taxpayers’ dollars being spent on controversial “Teen Pregnancy Prevention” programs.
Instead, the Trump administration is in favor of solid curriculum that emphasizes ABSTINENCE and MARRIAGE.
53 RADICAL, LEFTIST PROGRAMS CUT – SAVING $67 MILLION
The New York Times picked up on the cuts weeks after the fact in a sob story lamenting how caught off guard local nonprofits had been by HHS’s announcement.
But frankly, no one should be surprised.
The Trump administration slashed dozens of grants like this in its first term, arguing — rightly — that they only existed to sexualize children, not equip them to make positive and healthy choices.
A whopping 53 programs ended up on the chopping block, saving Americans $67 million in what the president’s budget called “radical leftist ideology.”
If anything, his administration argued, the Biden-and Obama-era, sex-ed models have only “normalized sexual activity for minors.”
Thanks to liberal ideologues masquerading as health experts, activists like Planned Parenthood have had unlimited access to America’s classrooms, knowing if they hook kids on sex, they’re grooming the next generation of abortion customers.
TRUMP OASH LIST OF PRIORITIES
Now the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) has made it clear that the department is under new management…recently posting a list of priorities that should relieve every sane parent in America.
(1) …the Agency vows to ensure that adolescent program materials must be “age-appropriate” and must NOT promote harmful ideologies, such as gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.
OASH will focus on programs that do NOT promote material that depicts, describes, exposes, or presents obscene, indecent, or sexually explicit content, “including content that encourages, normalizes, or promotes sexual activity for minors.”
OASH will “prioritize OASH programs and funding that are in compliance with these priorities and applicable law.”
(2)…OASH promises to defend parental rights “to the fullest extent of its authority under the law … including parents’ right to protect their children from exposure to content that burdens the exercise of their religious beliefs.”
Under this new criteria…anyone applying for taxpayer dollars “must teach abstinence (also known as ‘sexual risk avoidance’) as the only means to prevent teen pregnancy.”
Courses must stress the importance of marriage and procreation and instruct young people how to safeguard their fertility.
TODAY’S SEX ED MATERIALS – HARDLY MENTION PREVENTING STI’S
Sex education materials used in many schools today make scant reference to preventing sexually transmitted infections…
As Family Research Council’s (FRC) Quena González pointed out to The Washington Stand:
“The fact that some professional sex ed providers WHO RECEIVE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN FEDERAL FUNDS ARE COMPLAINING…should alarm parents and enrage taxpayers. We shouldn’t be allowing, much less paying for, schools to tell students, ‘We know you’re going to experiment (wink, wink) so here’s how to derive the most sexual pleasure from underage sex.’”
González applauded the overhaul as an overdue change to the dangerous status quo. He stated:
“Insisting that taxpayers pay adults to teach middle schoolers — typically 11-14 years old — about ‘sexual consent,’ pleasurable condom use, or how adolescent girls can use intrauterine devices and implants to avoid pregnancy, is just plain creepy.
Kids need to be taught that sex is a wonderful gift and a powerful expression of adult love when it is exercised within the safety of a loving marriage covenant.
Sex isn’t a toy, and the harm of offering it to minors is well documented and not really debated; studies show that delaying sexual contact until marriage increases the chances of a stable marriage and decreases the chance of living in poverty.”
Valerie Huber (the president of The Institute for Women’s Health) who has spent decades fighting for this kind of principled approach to sex ed, had one reaction to the Trump administration’s pivot: relief.
She went on to say:
“For years, sexual risk avoidance had to justify itself while the alternative was funded as though its results were settled…
Now, thanks to Trump, risk avoidance is being treated as a legitimate public health goal for adolescents, the way it already is for every other youth-risk behavior.
We do NOT teach teenagers to smoke carefully.
…now HHS is being consistent across all youth risk behaviors. Bravo!”
DAMAGE DONE BY THE LEFT’S MESSAGE TO STUDENTS
Huber looked back over the last several years, lamenting the damage that the Left’s “if-it-feels-good-do-it” message has done.
“When adults in authority signal that sexual activity is expected of a 14-year-old, that is not neutral information. It is PERMISSION, and for many students it is pressure.”
Under Obama and Biden, she noted:
“These programs routinely positioned outside providers, including organizations (whose business model depends on abortion – i.e., Planned Parenthood) as the “trusted” adult in a young person’s life — and treated parents as an obstacle to be managed.
A curriculum that teaches a 15-year-old how to obtain services without telling her mother is not a health program.”
Hubert stressed:
“(With the exception of Trump’s first term), students have been offered risk reduction at best and rarely offered risk avoidance which is the only approach that eliminates risk rather than managing it.”
Although teen pregnancies have dropped over time, it was a hollow victory:
“We counted births. We counted birth control. We did NOT count infections, we did NOT count coercion, and we did NOT measure what happens when pregnancy prevention becomes a substitute for holistic health and thriving for young people.
We called it a win. In those same years, the emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual health of American adolescents all declined.
If your scorecard shows success while the young people on it are falling apart, you are measuring the wrong thing.”
Of course, the nonprofits who’ve been suddenly cut off from this federal gravy train are complaining that this creates an “existential dilemma” for sex ed.
Some (according to the New York Times) are even suing HHS over the new requirements.
But the reality is, there’s no “right” to taxpayer dollars — especially not for an indoctrination scheme that’s only exacerbating the problems they claim to solve.
Huber underscored:
“What’s more, America needs to stop believing that young people can only meet the low bars we set.
Hand young people a high standard and tell them that you believe they can meet it, and most of them will rise to meet the standard.
What they resent instantly is the adult who tells them that they cannot be expected to control themselves.
…The Left’s model assumes ‘every teenager is sexually active’… Most high school students are not…”
AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PEDIATRICIANS
Dr. Michelle Cretella (board-certified general pediatrician, Pres. and then Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians) stated strongly:
“A rigorous review by the Institute for Research demonstrates that sexual risk avoidance education (SRAE) holds great promise. It aligns with the primary public health principle acknowledged by the CDC: abstinence is the only 100% effective way to prevent STDs and pregnancy, as condoms cannot guarantee absolute protection.
Dr. Cretella went on to say that unlike the Planned Parenthood-style programs, “effective SRAE is medically accurate,” and then she cited an article that she just authored for an online medical journal.
At the end of the day, our schools were never meant to be a substitute for moms and dads, who have the ultimate responsibility to raise their children in a way that reflects their values.
It’s not the job of teachers or outside “experts” to contradict those beliefs or commandeer a parent’s authority on topics that, in all honesty, don’t belong in classrooms in the first place.
Now, instead of shipping off tens of millions of dollars to graphic programs that double as LGBT recruiting programs and abortion infomercials, President Trump is letting research, parents, and common sense dictate how America approaches sex ed. And we should all be thankful for it!
MORE INFORMATION
6.26.26 – “Trump Ends Grants to PP for Pushing ‘Sexually Explicit’ Content on Kids” -- by Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell – Daily Signal -- https://donnagarner.org/6-26-26-trump-ends-grants-to-pp-for-pushing-sexually-explicit-content-on-kids-by-elizabeth-troutman-mitchell-daily-signal/
4.23.25 – “Trump Education Dept. -- ‘Children Do Not Belong to the Government’” -- by Dr. Susan Berry -- Lumen News -- https://donnagarner.org/4-23-25-trump-education-dept-children-do-not-belong-to-the-government-by-dr-susan-berry-lumen-news/
1.30.23 – “Why Comprehensive Sexuality Education Is Not the Answer” -- by Rebecca Oas, PhD – Center for Family and Human Rights” -- https://donnagarner.org/1-30-23-why-comprehensive-sexuality-education-is-not-the-answer/
10.3.12 – Adults Must Protect Our Country’s Children - by Donna Garner – EducationViews.org -- https://donnagarner.org/adults-must-protect-our-countrys-children/