An abstinence advocate now gets the final say on how $286 million of family planning money will be spent. Pro-abortion groups, predictably, are calling it “dangerous.”
Conservatives have long criticized the $286 million Title X program, which funds family planning services, mostly for low-income women, because it gives money to Planned Parenthood and other groups that provide abortions, even though there is a prohibition on using those dollars for abortions.
Now, for the first time since 1987, the final decision of who gets the funding will be in the hands of one person — Valerie Huber, the acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs at HHS, a longtime advocate of abstinence.Prior to joining the Trump administration, Huber was president and CEO of Ascend, a national organization that promoted “sexual risk avoidance” — a term she used instead of abstinence — among young people. Huber also managed the Ohio Department of Health’s sexual risk avoidance program from 2004 to 2007.