HHS Shifts Oversight of Sexual-Abstinence Grants

Two federal education grant programs promoting sexual abstinence have been shifted to an agency now led by a strong supporter of abstinence education, a move that is raising concerns in some quarters.

The Administration for Children and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services will now oversee the $50 million Title V grant program and the $104 million Special Projects of Regional and National Significance Community-based Abstinence Education grant program. The ACF is headed by Wade F. Horn, an assistant secretary of the department who is known for his advocacy of abstinence programs for students.

Harry Wilson, the associate commissioner of the ACF’s Family and Youth Services Bureau, said the programs would be more effective under the ACF because the agency already...