Kennedy's HHS Canceled Teen-Pregnancy Grants to Impose Abstinence Rules a Judge Blocked

Nearly the Entire Grant Cohort Lost Funding

On June 23, 2026, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services issued new funding notices for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program.¹ Every grantee had to incorporate abstinence-only education and body literacy, a framework HHS described as understanding how the body functions in health.¹ Three days later, HHS sent immediate termination letters to nearly all members of the 2023-2028 grant cohort.¹ Congress had designed that funding to support proven prevention approaches and test new ones.¹ HHS planned to use the same pool of money for replacement projects, under conditions Judge Christopher Cooper found likely arbitrary and capricious.¹ Planned Parenthood of the Heartland reported layoffs; other providers reported threatened closures and years of research at risk.¹

Trump appointed Kennedy health secretary on February 13, 2025, and kept him in office: HHS still identified him as secretary in its October 1, 2026 filing.²³ HHS tied its earlier curriculum restrictions to Trump: its July 2025 policy notice highlighted his executive order on K-12 schooling and said funded projects should not undermine the President's "clear policy directive to protect children from harmful ideologies."¹ Cooper found that the 2026 notices revived those restrictions.¹

The administration had proposed eliminating the program's funding for 2026.¹ Congress appropriated $101 million anyway.¹ It reserved 75% of nonadministrative funds for replicating programs proven effective through rigorous evaluation, and 25% for developing and testing new models.¹ Abstinence had its own line: the law's next sentence provided $35 million for abstinence-only education.¹

The termination letters cited changed priorities and curricular content, rather than misconduct or failure to satisfy the grant agreements.¹ HHS's October 1 court filing listed termination letters for 52 grantees beyond the plaintiffs.³

HHS Required an Approach It Could Not Substantiate

On body literacy, HHS's notices cited public health studies that, Cooper wrote, "appear either not to exist or not to support the propositions for which they are cited."¹ He called that a hallmark of AI-generated citations, without determining how the references were produced.¹ HHS's own notice acknowledged a near-absence of body-literacy education standards.¹ Cooper found the body-literacy mandate seemingly incompatible with the requirement that most program funds replicate approaches already proven effective.¹

The program's statutory goal was to reduce teen pregnancy.¹ Cooper found unrebutted evidence that abstinence-only programs generally failed to delay sexual initiation or reduce adolescent pregnancy.¹ He acknowledged such education could suit particular age groups or communities, but wrote that HHS had "proffered no explanation or evidence to support its across-the-board mandate."¹ HHS's notices emphasized a different aim, improving overall health through understanding chronic conditions affecting health and fertility.¹ The Tier 1 notice also urged counseling that affirmed marriage and parenthood as valued parts of adult life; Cooper said the new requirements implied an aim of promoting fertility and marital procreation that sat uneasily with preventing teen pregnancy.¹ When Cooper blocked the notices on August 19, HHS had not yet chosen the replacement grantees, so that funding round had not produced program outcomes to assess against either goal.¹

The notices also required alignment with agency priorities restricting DEI, gender ideology, and content deemed to normalize teen sexual activity.¹ Cooper found those restrictions too vague for providers to know how to comply.¹ In October 2025, Judge Beryl Howell had already vacated the July 2025 notice as arbitrary and capricious, finding its requirements incomprehensible and unsupported by a reasoned explanation.¹ The 2026 notices repackaged those restrictions and added the blanket abstinence and body-literacy requirements.¹

HHS canceled King County's grant partly for failing to identify purported contraceptive risks, including later infertility.¹ Cooper said HHS apparently failed to consider evidence contradicting that infertility claim, and evidence that fear about contraception's purported risks was more likely to reduce birth-control use and increase teen pregnancy.¹

Cooper also found that HHS had apparently abandoned its expert review for identifying proven programs, while giving bonus points to applicants who had never received a program award.¹

Changing Priorities Did Not Excuse Skipping the Explanation

HHS's strongest defense was that an agency may change priorities without proving its new policy better than the old one.¹ Its lawyers added that not all programming had to address abstinence or body literacy, and that age-appropriate discussion of teen sexual activity remained permissible.¹

Cooper accepted the first point.¹ But an agency that changes course must give good reasons, account for reliance on its previous approach, and obey Congress's spending conditions.¹ He rejected the lawyers' qualifications because HHS had not put them in its policy documents: lawyers could not supply the agency's missing explanation after the fact.¹ On August 19, Cooper preliminarily blocked the new policy and funding notices, finding the policy likely arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.¹

Heartland Had Already Begun Winding Down Its Program

In uncontested declarations recounted by Cooper, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland said its program depended entirely on the federal grant and it had already begun winding down the project and laying off staff.¹ It warned that young people in Iowa and Nebraska would lose proven sexual and reproductive health education.¹

Hennepin County warned that without replacement funding, its program partners could not keep health mentors in schools and clinics, and most partners would have to lay off their health mentors entirely.¹ King County said that within two months it would lack enough funding to keep evaluating its prevention study, putting three years of data collection at risk of largely going to waste.¹ Cooper found that the three providers faced irreparable harm, including threats to the existence of their programs, rather than merely temporary financial losses.¹

Where It Stands on October 10, 2026

As of October 10, 2026, the court had not restored the providers' canceled grants: Cooper declined to order reinstatement because jurisdiction over that remedy remained uncertain, and the separate advocacy plaintiff, SIECUS, had not shown harm that could not be repaired.¹⁴

On September 21, Cooper kept the money available past its September 30 expiration but denied an additional ban on spending it; HHS could still make awards consistent with the injunction and the statute.⁵ He denied an emergency conference on September 25.⁶ The plaintiffs' motion for a final ruling was due October 22, and the case remained unresolved, according to Georgetown's Health Care Litigation Tracker, updated October 2.⁵⁴

It was not the only change under Kennedy a judge halted in 2026: on March 16, Judge Brian Murphy stayed thirteen challenged vaccine-panel appointments and the January changes shortening the childhood vaccination schedule, after finding the committee's reconstitution and schedule changes likely unlawful.⁷

The charge is abuse of public power: Trump's appointee used grant conditions and mass cancellations to replace Congress's evidence requirements with an unexplained policy that a judge found likely unlawful, while Heartland began winding down its prevention program.²¹ The injunction stopped the replacement policy; it did not undo the cancellations or restore the providers' grants.¹