Biden Admin Links Teens to Planned Parenthood for National Adolescent Health Month

The Biden administration made “sexual and reproductive health” the focus of the first week of National Adolescent Health Month, highlighting a federal website that connects teenagers and minors — “especially” low-income and minority Americans — to Planned Parenthood facilities at taxpayer expense.

Other federally funded resources the Biden administration recommends to teenagers promote the use of potentially abortion-inducing forms of “birth control,” promote contraceptive use as the best way to improve mental health, and link to contraception “information” sheets funded by Big Pharma and Google.

The very first item listed under the month-long celebration of adolescent health is efforts to “expand sexual and reproductive health information and services” for teens. Promoting these themes helps cultivate the “strengths and potential of our nation’s young people,” said Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine (named Richard at birth), in a joint statement with the leader of the HHS Office of Population Affairs.

The Biden administration’s “Resources for National Adolescent Health Month™ 2023” website links young people to ReproductiveHealthServices.gov, a federally funded website that connects people to the nearest recipient of Title X “family planning” funds.

That list includes the local offices of the nation’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America pulled out of Title X funding in 2019 after the Trump administration stipulated that recipients could no longer refer patients for abortions. But President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s order in October 2021, opening up another spigot of federal funding. The National Adolescent Health Month (NAHM) resource website further links the Biden administration’s Title X rule reversing Trump’s decision. The rule said it aimed to “restore access to equitable, affordable … family planning services for more Americans … especially for low-income” Americans and “communities that have been historically underserved,” e.g., racial/ethnic minorities.

Planned Parenthood committed 374,155 abortions and received $670.4 million in U.S. taxpayer funding in the 2021-2022 fiscal year — largely from “family planning” programs that subsidize contraception distribution.

NAHM’s resource page also points teens to a website on “Contraception and Preventing Pregnancy,” which begins by listing “Long-acting Reversible Contraceptives” (LARCs), including Intrauterine Devices (IUDs), hormonal implants, and the contraceptive shot — without mentioning that all LARCs may act as potential abortifacients. It does the same with its listing of so-called “emergency contraception.”

Abstinence is listed under “other forms of pregnancy prevention.” Yet the HHS accurately summarizes, “Sexual abstinence … is the only 100 percent effective way to protect against pregnancy.”

Biden and Levine also point health care professionals to a document titled “Helping Young People Choose the Birth Control Method Right for Them: A Guide for Youth Supporting Professionals.” The handbook is designed to facilitate adult non-relatives’ discussing sex with “young people who experience the child welfare or justice systems, homelessness, or disconnection from school and work.”

Abstinence is not discussed. At no point does the guide instruct adults to ask sexually active, vulnerable young people whether they seek contraceptives because they are being abused, exploited, or sexually trafficked.

Instead, the Biden administration links Planned Parenthood and other birth control dispensaries to a webinar advising how to “begin the process of becoming a more welcoming environment to young people.”

They also provide social media memes to attract young people into Planned Parenthood offices. NAHM’s website links to the “Promoting Family Planning Services Social Media Toolkit” from the Reproductive Health National Training Center (RHNTC), which shares photos and pre-written messages aimed at cultivating a younger customer base, including those who identify at transgender:

• One image shows a counselor telling a young, black female, “You deserve affirming health care.”;
• A sample social media message proclaims, “People with a range of identities and orientations can benefit from birth control! No matter how you identify or who you’re having sex with, we can help you find the method that works for you: org/features/1054”;
• A second LGBTQ-targeted message offers “tips for trans, nonbinary, and intersex people who are navigating sexual health”;
• Another tells young people the facilities’ goal for teens: “No shame, no stigma — just a happy and empowered sex life”;
• Sexuality pervades messages purportedly on general mental health. One article linked in its talking points advises teens who “feel like the world is ending” to “[t]ake your meds (including your birth control),” promoting teen contraceptive use as the primary means of positive mental health. “If you’re going to pick just one thing on this list to do, let it be this one,” it says. It also encourages teens struggling with mental health issues to “register to vote.”

The RHNTC’s media “toolkit” regularly links to the Bedsider website. Bedsider is operated by Power to Decide, a nonprofit organization funded by a coalition of U.S. taxpayers, Big Pharma giants, and left-of-center tax-exempt foundations. Its funders include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Merck & Co., the Bayer Corporation, Plan B One-Step, the Female Health Company (producers of the female condom), Google, the Ford Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation.

Power to Decide also operates Bedsider’s sister website, AbortionFinder.org, which connects users to abortion facilities nationwide.

“I hope you will download, customize, and share those resources and our social media graphics” to help “support the adolescents that you work with and care about,” Levine told adolescent health care providers in an online video.

“The assistant secretary’s reference to sexual and reproductive health services certainly points toward expanding the abortion industry’s ability to exploit teenagers at a stage where their brains are in the midst of developing,” Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “Instead of encouraging teenagers to exercise, maintain a healthy diet, and build strong friendships, the assistant secretary is encouraging promiscuity and abortion — both of which lead to unhappiness and serious mental health issues.”

“National Adolescent Health Month should focus on improving the health and wellbeing of America’s teens by providing resources that lead to human flourishing. Incidentally, Assistant Secretary Levine’s focus does just the opposite,” Szoch told TWS.