The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) must rescind changes it imposed to teen pregnancy prevention programs, a federal judge ruled on Oct. 7.
Updated conditions for organizations carrying out the programs, which cited executive orders from President Donald Trump, were so vague that the organizations could not know how to comply, Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a 65-page decision.
“The Policy Notice mandates compliance now, without providing plaintiffs with any meaningful standard for achieving that compliance,” Howell said.
She ordered HHS to vacate the notice laying out the updated conditions for grant recipients.
An HHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that the department would not comment on litigation. The spokesperson pointed to the news release for the policy, which states in part that the update “safeguards the rights of parents to protect their children from content that undermines their religious beliefs.”
Under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, created by Congress in 2009, HHS provides money to organizations to carry out “medically accurate and age appropriate programs that reduce teen pregnancy.” Most of the funds go to programs that “have been proven effective through rigorous evaluation to reduce teenage pregnancy, behavioral risk factors underlying teenage pregnancy, or other associated risk factors.”
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