Undermining an effective birth control funding program to promote abstinence is the height of stupid
By THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD at the LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-title-x-guideline-shift-20180514-story.html
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Recently released guidelines for providers applying for funds signaled such a disturbing shift away from the program's previous guidelines and statutory mandate that it triggered two lawsuits. The complaints — filed on behalf of three state Planned Parenthood groups and the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Assn. — argue that the Department of Health and Human Services is unlawfully directing applicants to emphasize natural family planning or abstinence as birth control. They've asked for an injunction that would stop the new guidelines from being implemented, and the courts should grant it.
No one disputes that abstinence is guaranteed to prevent pregnancy. What’s not guaranteed is that people will actually abstain.
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The problem isn't that the new guidelines instruct service providers to offer natural family planning (the calendar, or "rhythm," method of birth control) and abstinence as possible methods of birth control. The Title X statute requires as much, and Planned Parenthood officials say they have always offered these options in their clinics.
But the previous guidelines (from 2016) also emphasized that providers should offer the full range of FDA-approved contraceptives, or justify why any of the methods were not offered. The new guidelines don't even mention the word "contraceptive." Instead, they instruct providers to put a "meaningful emphasis" on counseling that extols the benefits of avoiding the risks of sex outside marriage, both for adolescents and adults. And for adolescents, in particular, providers should communicate the benefits of delaying sex, according to the guidelines.
The Trump administration is clearly trying to take a program that has successfully provided legions of clients medically effective birth control and counseling and use it to promote its philosophy that abstinence is the best policy, especially for adolescents. It's an approach championed by Vice President Mike Pence and the Trump appointee overseeing Title X grants, who previously ran an organization that promoted abstinence-only sex education. But not only does the new policy arguably violate Title X by emphasizing abstinence over other forms of family planning and encouraging single women not to have sex, it does so at the expense of other proven methods of birth control.
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There are no words for that..... 
