Why the Trump administration is cutting teen pregnancy prevention funding (CNN)

Thursday Aug 17th, 2017

Most teenagers feel uncomfortable talking about sex, but not 16-year-old Bryanna Ely.

As a youth leader for the Buffalo, New York-based teen pregnancy prevention program HOPE Buffalo, Ely talks to not only other teens but also adults. She explains how they can help teens when it comes to their emotional, physical and sexual health, abstinence and birth control.
"It's definitely made me more comfortable around health providers, because I was very nervous and not willing to talk about it, but then once I joined HOPE Buffalo, it's an easy subject to talk about. Well, not that easy, but it's easy enough to talk about that I don't feel so uncomfortable," said Ely, who will be entering her junior year in high school this month.
 
While volunteering with HOPE Buffalo at a local community center, Ely said, she remembered meeting another teenage girl, sharing sexual health information with her and feeling like she made a difference. "She took in all the information, and she said she would not get pregnant until she was 28 or 30," Ely said. "I joined HOPE Buffalo because I wanted to make a change in my community and make sure that these teenagers who didn't have a voice had a voice." Yet federal funding for such teen pregnancy prevention programs in the United States is now on the chopping block.
 

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