FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 14th, 2026

Washington, DC – For more than 60 years, SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change has stood for one simple idea: young people deserve information about their bodies and their health that is honest, accurate, and rooted in evidence. 

When the Trump-Vance administration recently terminated 53 of 67 Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants and rushed out new funding priorities for the program built on an ideological agenda instead of science, we knew we could not stand on the sidelines. SIECUS has joined a coalition lawsuit, alongside Planned Parenthood of the Heartland; Hennepin County, Minnesota; and King County, Washington, to challenge these actions in federal court.  Democracy Forward, Public Citizen, and Dunn Isaacson Rhee LLP represent SIECUS, Hennepin County, and King County. Planned Parenthood Federation of America represents Planned Parenthood of the Heartland.

“Terminating the Teen Pregnancy Prevention grants was reckless. It’s already hurting young people and disrupting proven programs in communities nationwide,” said Callie Simon, Executive Director of SIECUS. “We are joining this litigation because young people deserve medically-accurate, inclusive sex education, not ideological programs that ignore the evidence, violate the law, and put their health and wellbeing at risk.”

The Teen Pregnancy Prevention program has supported sexual and reproductive health education proven to improve the health of young people since 2010. In place of these programs, the administration released new funding opportunities requiring grantees to implement abstinence-only programs that erase LGBTQIA+ young people, spread medically inaccurate information about contraception, and promote “fertility” as a core outcome. 

This is not what Congress designed the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program to do. Congress authorized this program to fund “medically accurate and age-appropriate” education, and required that the vast majority of funding go to programs proven to work. This isn’t about protecting young people, it’s about pushing a pronatalist agenda that has nothing to do with what keeps young people healthy and safe.

This is why SIECUS exists. To lead the fight for sex education built on science. By joining this lawsuit, we are standing up for every young person in America who deserves honest, inclusive, and accurate sex education.  

Please direct media inquiries to [email protected] and [email protected].

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SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change has served as a leading national voice for sex education since 1964, asserting that sexuality is a fundamental part of being human, one worthy of dignity and respect. Through advocacy, policy, and coalition building, SIECUS advances sex education as a vehicle for social change—where all people receive sex education, are affirmed in their identities, and have the power to make decisions about their own health, pleasure, and wholeness.