SPOKANE, Wash. – Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho joined the Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands and Planned Parenthood of the Heartland on Thursday and filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump-Pence administration for abruptly ending the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP).
The administration is cutting funding and ending the program two years early.
TPPP was created in 2010 as an evidence-based program to educate teens on sexual health, inclusive health care, sexually transmitted infection prevention and making healthy life decisions.
The sexual health education programs include family connectedness programs for teens and parents in rural communities, inclusive health care to reduce pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections of the LGBTQ youth, and evidence-based programs in communities with the highest needs.
The TPPP program educates and provides services to more than 1,399 youth in the Spokane region.
“When youth have access to medically-accurate, inclusive, and evidence-based sexual health education, they make healthy decisions about their lives,” Rachel Todd, director of education said. “The city of Spokane has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the state, putting youth at greater risk of poverty and too many are getting shame-based, outdated education that focuses on abstinence until marriage. We can do better.”
In Spokane, TPPP partners with community programs such as Daybreak Youth Services and 73 other partners to connect teens in communities that are most impacted by high rates of teenage pregnancies.
The average age of teens in Spokane who start becoming sexually active is 16-year-old.
The grant served four communities in Washington including Spokane, Yakima, Okanogan and Benton-Franklin counties.
The program was scheduled to be funded for five years and the funding cuts are projected to impact 8,000 teenagers in Spokane who the program will be unable to reach.
