Right-wing dogma is quietly finding its way into real-time policy choices. An 18-year-old reviews birth control information at Children’s Hospital Colorado’s Colorado Adolescent Maternity Program. The Trump administration’s new funding priorities shift the focus of teen pregnancy prevention programs toward pregnancy planning and “reproductive goals” counseling. (Marc Piscotty / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Originally published by The Contrarian, “The Hormone Dystopia Continues.”

The Trump administration’s hormonal obsession rages on. Last week, it was a new rule about access to testosterone in the military.

Now, we are on to federal funding recommendations for teen pregnancy prevention and sex education programs—which will now be required to address menstrual tracking, hormonal production and the MAHA-coined “reproductive goals counseling.”

New grant application terms put forth by the Office of Population Affairs are placing more focus on teaching teens to plan for pregnancy rather than prevent it.

Most would consider a decline in teen pregnancy good news. Not this pronatalist crew …

The New York Times and an array of local outlets recently reported on several organizations offering evidence-based programming that have lost millions of dollars for failing to align with that goal.

• One group, Healthy Futures of Texas, reported nearly $2 million of its federally grant-funded programming was cut, including for teens in foster care.
• Another, Children’s Aid in New York City, said their Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grant, set to be renewed through 2028, was abruptly canceled.
• The Times featured Fact Forward, which serves teens in North and South Carolina and lost $1.6 million.

These are just three of the 67 grantees that have had their federal funding terminated for providing content that, according to the Trump administration, “normalizes sexual activity for minors.”

Congress created the $100 million Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program in 2010, which has been renewed with bipartisan support ever since. In the 16 years since its launch, the teen birthrate in the United States plummeted by more than 70 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Much of the drop in the overall national birthrate is because of the dramatic shift in teen birth rates. A report from Pew Research Center credits a combination of comprehensive sex education, better access to contraception and general behavioral trends around sex (which Gen Z apparently isn’t all that into).

Most would consider a decline in teen pregnancy good news. Not this pronatalist crew, led by the White House’s own “fertilization president.” 

Recall in April, when the news broke, Fox News senior medical analyst Marc Siegel remarked on air: “We still have 3.6 million births a year, but the problem is teens and young adults…. We’re telling people that are young not to have babies, to wait until they’re in a more stable life situation, more financially secure.”

Katie Miller, spouse of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, complained on social media of “a crisis fueled by delayed motherhood, toxic career-first culture, and the lie pushed by Legacy Media and feminists that kids are a burden.”

All that dogma is quietly finding its way into real-time policy choices. Going forward, to be eligible for federal funding, every applicant must pass an “alignment review” with agency priorities, a process conducted by political appointees and that is part of a government-wide initiative the Office of Management and Budget is attempting to implement.

For teen pregnancy prevention programs, in particular, this means “affirm[ing] marriage and parenthood as meaningful and value components of adult life,” as well as offering counseling on “reproductive goals” and “promot[ing] optimal health through an upstream, preventive approach by emphasizing root-cause understanding of chronic health conditions that may impact overall health and fertility”—both of which are part of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA vision for “restorative reproductive medicine” as an alternative to IVF.

Chase Infiniti in The Testaments. Atwood’s dystopian vision of state control over reproduction looms over today’s battles over sex education and reproductive policy. (Disney)

Federal guidelines for body literacy feature sex-segregated modules in anatomy and reproduction that are equally dogmatic:

• Girls’ instruction about phases of the menstrual cycle must recognize ovulation as the “central event and primary indicator of hormonal health and fertility” (hence creating runway for verbiage like “ovarian suppression” to undermine forms of contraception).
• Boys are to be taught about the role of testosterone (but, of course!), as well as “the physiology of arousal and how repeated or artificially stimulated arousal”—aka, masturbation—“may affect neural development and behavior over time.”

Are you there, Judy Blume? We need you more than ever!

Readers, please know that I am among the biggest supporters of hormonal fluency and have long advocated for and written publicly about the value of menstrual cycle education. I view it as an essential antidote to Dobbs, given the dismal state of knowledge most Americans have about how, when and why weeks of pregnancy are measured. That ignorance extends exponentially to our public officials; read here how Texas Gov. Greg Abbott grotesquely missed the mark in a public speech when Texas enacted its diabolical abortion bounty hunter law, Senate Bill 8, in September 2021.

It is a matter of life-saving self-defense to accurately understand the mechanics of the menstrual cycle in this era in which pregnancy is controlled by the state and can be criminalized and when maternal mortality rates remain sky high.

But context and intent surely matter—and these particular teen pregnancy guidelines are a Heritage Foundation fever dream. Among the national organizations suing to stop them are the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) and Democracy Forward.

Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, said, “This is a backdoor, ideologically driven effort disguised as education, defying Congress’ clear directive that these grants support medically accurate, age-appropriate, evidence-based programs.”

SIECUS further warns that these new funding guidelines are paving the way for crisis pregnancy centers to apply for and receive federal dollars.

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A note from Ms. editors: We want to hear from you for The Majority, a new campaign collecting stories about how reproductive freedom has enabled readers to build the lives they want and need. Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans support reproductive healthcare access. Yet public debate overlooks the lives shaped by abortion access, contraception, IVF, miscarriage care, maternal healthcare or comprehensive sex education—countless women who chose to pursue an education, have children, not have children, protect their health and chart their own future. Add your voice and complete the sentence: “Access to reproductive choices gave me the freedom to….” Together, these stories will help show not only why reproductive freedom remains a majority value, but also what it makes possible. 

Look to these trusted groups if you or a loved one needs to know more about reliable abortion care:

• A one-stop-shop for abortion seekers: I Need An A
• Other websites to explore all your options for abortion care: Plan C Pills, Abortion Finder
• Safe websites to buy abortion medication: Aid Access, Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project, Hey Jane
• If you need help affording abortion care, tell your telemedicine provider or contact an abortion fund near you.
• To protect your digital privacy when planning your abortion, click here.
• For free legal help as a patient or doctor, call If/When/How’s Repro Helpline—844-868-2812—or contact Pregnancy Justice.
• For medical advice, contact the Miscarriage & Abortion Hotline: 833-246-2632.
• If you need to know the abortion law in your state, look to the Center for Reproductive Rights. or Guttmacher Institute.