The Office of Population Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, June 30, awarded Planned Parenthood of the Heartland in Des Moines, Iowa, a three-year grant totaling over $2 million to ostensibly “replicate effective teenage pregnancy prevention programs.”
This, despite federal studies that show Planned Parenthood’s sex education programs not only fail to reduce teenage pregnancy, but in five states even increased the number of pregnancies among those subjected to Planned Parenthood’s “education.”
As The FAMiLY Leader documented in a Des Moines Register column in 2019, three federal studies show Planned Parenthood-led programs failed or even hurt students.
From 2011 through 2014, Planned Parenthood received $4 million to teach sex education across five northwestern states. According to the report, titled “Evaluation of the Teen Outreach Program® in The Pacific Northwest,” six different Planned Parenthood affiliate partners taught over 3,500 students in 87 schools. Both the short-term and final impact analysis concluded that the program “had an impact in the undesirable direction on females becoming pregnant.” Or more bluntly, Planned Parenthood’s program resulted in more students getting pregnant!
Researchers stated that in the short-term sample, “Among males, females, and non-Hispanics, TOP® [the program taught by Planned Parenthood] students were significantly more likely than controls to have ever been pregnant or to have caused a pregnancy.”
The equally revealing Safer Sex Intervention: Final Impact Report demonstrates Planned Parenthood failing where another contractor at least had a little success. Buried in Appendix B, you can compare the results for yourself. The Hennepin County Department of Public Health, teaching the same curriculum over the same period in the same evaluation, created short-term, positive changes in three sexual behaviors. In contrast, Planned Parenthood failed to impact a single sexual behavior after receiving nearly $500,000 in taxpayer funding.
The third federal study involving Planned Parenthood took place in Chicago, where they were one of three contractors. Here again, the program did not positively impact any student behavior — a clear pattern of wasted time and money.
In fact, the only study TFL could find showing positive effects from a Planned Parenthood-led sex ed program was commissioned and paid for by the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts.
Planned Parenthood sex education, paid for with tax dollars, repeatedly failed to help students. Studies in Minnesota, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, Florida, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska all confirm their ineffectiveness.
“We should recognize the obvious pattern,” says TFL Capitol Team member Daniel Sunne. “The last organization government should pay to prevent teen pregnancies is Planned Parenthood.”
