Congress passed $100 million for teen pregnancy prevention. Most of it is untouched

Two teens look at different kinds of birth control with an intern and staff member of Bridgercare in June 2025. Bridgercare, a nonprofit based in Bozeman, Mont., had its federal grant abruptly canceled. Hazel Cramer hide caption

Congress passed $101 million in funding for teen pregnancy prevention, and President Trump signed that into law as part of his budget bill. But with less than a week to go in the 2026 fiscal year, about $100 million of that funding remains unspent.

According to a letter from members of Congress shared exclusively with NPR, the Department of Health and Human Services has spent about $500,000 of the $101 million it is obligated to give out in grants to organizations that work with teens.

"Withholding these funds deprives teens across the U.S. of vital resources and threatens to unwind decades of progress made in reducing teen pregnancy," reads the letter from the Democratic Women's Caucus to HHS. Ninety-two lawmakers in the House and Senate signed the letter, which was sent to HHS on Friday morning.

Grants to dozens of nonprofits, universities and health departments were cut off abruptly in June. Most were in the third year of a five-year funding cycle, according to the lawmakers' letter.

Stephanie McDowell is the executive director of Bridgercare , a nonprofit in Bozeman, Mont. It's one of about 50 organizations that had their grants terminated. "We truly had no indication that our funding would be cut," she says.

This recent loss of federal funding has been challenging, McDowell says. She's been trying to find other grants to apply to, but it's not easy. "Ultimately, we can't sustain an education program at the scale that we were at, serving 21 counties across the state of Montana without funding," she says. "And so we will have to lay off staff, and there will be youth that go without sex ed."

But it is possible that the federal grant funding will come back. HHS could decide to reinstate the grants by itself, or a lawsuit in federal court challenging the terminations might force the agency to do so.