News & Updates

Trump’s 2021 budget continues attacks on sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice

For Immediate Release
February 11, 2020

Contact: Zach Eisenstein
Phone: (202) 265-2405 ext 3330
zeisenstein@siecus.org

(Washington, DC) – In response to President Trump’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, Samantha Cyrulnik-Dercher, SIECUS’ Federal Policy Director, released the following statement:

“After years of nonstop attacks on the health and rights of millions of Americans, the priorities outlined in President Trump’s proposed budget, while not surprising, are devastating. Donald Trump will never know what it means to rely on food stamps to feed his family, or seek sexual health services at a Title X-funded family planning clinic. He has kept a target on the backs of marginalized communities since the day he ran for office, and this budget proposal is no different. 

Some of the most dangerous provisions in the President’s budget directly impact the sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice of young people. These include:

  • A 10% overall cut to funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, including slashing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget by nearly 15%
  • The total elimination of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
  • Continued funding for the ineffective, shaming Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage “Sexual Risk Avoidance Education” program at $75 million
  • An unconscionable $292 billion in cuts to our nation’s safety nets, including cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, assistance for people with disabilities, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program
  • Continued attacks on Title X, including jeopardizing confidential care for young people seeking family planning services
  • Allowing broad discrimination by federally-funded health care providers against their own patients, under the guise of “conscience rights”

We are grateful that this cruel and heartless proposal has virtually no chance of becoming law. But it’s quite a statement of the Trump-Pence administration’s priorities: funneling billions into their racist border wall while slashing public health programs and eliminating evidence-based sex ed programs.”

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SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change has served as the national voice for sex education for 55 years, asserting that sexuality is a fundamental part of being human, one worthy of dignity and respect. Through policy, advocacy, education, and strategic communications efforts, SIECUS advances sex education as a vehicle for social change—working toward a world where all people can access and enjoy sexual and reproductive freedom as they define it for themselves.

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