WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The Trump administration has laid off thousands of Department of Health and Human Services workers due to the government shutdown, including those that work on “family planning” and “LGBTQ health” issues.
A former Biden official complained to the pro-LGBT website The Advocate about the cuts. Self-described LGBT “activist” Adrian Shanker was “deputy assistant secretary for health policy and senior adviser on LGBTQ+ health equity under the Biden administration,” according to the publication. He also founded an LGBT “community center” that hosted drag queen story hours, as previously reported by LifeSiteNews. He has written about “queer health activism,” along with several publications with sexually inappropriate names.
He said the cuts by Trump have been “ideological.”
“These are the programs that centered [so-called] reproductive and queer health, and now they’re gone,” Shanker said.
The Office of Population Affairs, which has effectively been shut down, facilitated “sex education” for “LGBTQ+ youth,” the magazine reported.
The office has been criticized for promoting birth control and abortion, as the name implies. Under President Barack Obama, for example, the office promoted abortifacient birth control as a means of controlling the spread of the Zika virus (though the connection is unclear).
The agency also oversees the Title X “family planning” program, which subsidizes birth control so women can have fewer babies. Planned Parenthood is a major recipient of this funding, and so the office acts as a conduit to funnel taxpayer dollars to the nation’s largest abortion vendor.
The government shutdown officially began on October 1 and has necessitated a “reduction in force,” which means layoffs across the federal government.
The administration is using the layoffs as an opportunity to cut programs favored by Democrats, according to President Trump.
“We’re only cutting Democrat programs, I hate to tell you, but we are cutting Democrat programs,” Trump said during a recent cabinet meeting, as reported by Politico. “We will be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly.”
Republicans maintain that Democrats are keeping the government shutdown because of Obamacare subsidies, which could be used to subsidize abortions.
“It’s disgusting that Democrats are shutting down the government to continue to hide the failures of Obamacare with massive taxpayer-funded subsidy checks to insurance companies that can fund abortions and [transgender] surgeries,” Florida Senator Rick Scott told The Daily Signal. “Republicans cannot allow American taxpayers to foot the bill for Democrats’ liberal wish list that lets this happen.”
