The Texas Health and Human Services Commission has deemed abortion providers ineligible for state contracts or subsidies to run abstinence education programs.
According to the new language, no entity affiliated with any elective abortion provider, whose name is similar to any abortion provider or advocacy group, or who is located within 1,000 feet of an abortion facility is eligible for funds.
Texas’s Abstinence Education Program is expected to dispense $3 million to local groups for teaching minors to abstain from sex, with a cap of $300,000 per group.
Though state lawmakers’ latest budget did not specifically request the change, an agency spokesman said they took their guidance from the legislature, apparently a reference to Republicans’ efforts to defund abortion and Planned Parenthood in recent years.
In the past, Live Action News has covered Planned Parenthood’s attempts to apply for abstinence grants, despite the abortion giant’s history of public statements opposing abstinence education’s effectiveness and a variety of their educational materials actively encouraging minors to sexually experiment.
In September, Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards called on states to defund abstinence education, while Live Action’s SexEd investigation found counselors at Planned Parenthood clinics advising minors to get sex ideas from the Fifty Shades of Grey novels and porn shops.
