Judge: Planned Parenthood can ignore Trump's EO on gender ideology

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell has ruled that Planned Parenthood affiliates in California, Iowa, and New York do not have to comply with recent executive orders requiring them to affirm biological sex and discontinue the promotion of radical gender ideology and promiscuity in order to receive federal funding

Key Takeaways:

• Despite multiple Trump executive orders specifying otherwise, a district judge has ruled that certain Planned Parenthood affiliates in three states do not have to rid their sex ed curricula of radical gender ideology.

• The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program has been shown in the past to have failed to prevent teen pregnancy, and may have actually increased sexual activity among teens.

The Details:

The aforementioned Planned Parenthood affiliates receive funding through the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program of the Office of Population Affairs. Earlier this year, the participants in this program were told they would have to comply with several executive orders to continue to receive funding. These orders included:

• Executive Order 14168: “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”

• Executive Order 14190: “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling”  

• Executive Order 14187: “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation”  

• Executive Order 14151: “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing”

• Executive Order 14173: “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity”

Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, Planned Parenthood of California Central Coast, and Planned Parenthood of the Heartland (Iowa) decided to push back on these orders and filed a lawsuit.

Howell claimed her reasoning for deciding in favor of the Planned Parenthood Affiliates was that “no indication that the new requirements in the July Policy Notice were the product of reasoned decision-making and analysis of evidence, with the sole source cited for the new requirements the general policy directions outlined in several recent EOs.”

Howell believes the HHS "violated the Administrative Procedure Act." Howell also thought that the orders went beyond what should be required of a teen pregnancy program, adding, “Taxpayer funded programming for this country’s youth to prevent teen pregnancy is statutorily required to be medically accurate, age appropriate, and effective according to rigorous, evidence-based analysis.”

The Bottom Line:

Despite Howell's claims, it has repeatedly been shown that most Planned Parenthood sexual education programs are neither age-appropriate nor effective. (Read more here.) Many of the sexual education programs being funded don’t actually focus on preventing teen pregnancy. They focus more on promoting promiscuity and radical gender ideologies.

As of October 2025, there has been no indication as to whether there will be an appeal of the decision or further action taken.