WASHINGTON — In hardscrabble Lawrence, Massachusetts, adolescent students watch a teen pregnancy prevention video that mimics the type of drama featured on the CW network.

“Why don’t we hop in and rock this car?” a young man suggests to his girlfriend while hugging and making out.

“That’s not going to happen,” the girl responds, wagging her finger and walking away. 

The video – and dozens like it in urban and rural schools, clinics and communities across America — is one of several aimed at reducing teen pregnancy through psychology that aims to get young girls imagining in advance the real life consequences of sexual activity. The program also teaches safe sex. 

Funded for the past three years by a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the project was developed by psychology and medical experts at Carnegie Mellon and West Virginia universities.

But with the change in national administrations from President Barack Obama to President Donald Trump, the program faces the budget chopping block.

The Health Department’s Office of Adolescent Health recently advised Lawrence, where more than 90 percent of the students are Latino, and other communities in the program that funding will end after June 30 of next year — even though it was initially promised to last through 2020.

The office said money appropriated for teen sex education would be “guided by science and a firm commitment to giving all youth the information and skills they need to improve their prospects for optional health outcomes.”

In 19 West Virginia counties, students are engaged in a program called “19 Weeks.” Middle and high school girls simulate what to do when pressured to have sex. Seventh graders, for example, practice how to say no, and to look sternly and cross their arms to show they mean it.

The Health Department, in an emailed statement, said it is eliminating the project early because it does not believe similar programs funded between 2010 and 2014 were effective.

But it also signaled a philosophical change.

The statement said if Congress wants to continue the current program, the administration wants to ensure it “provides positive reinforcement of the healthy decisions being made by a growing majority of teens.” The statement then noted fewer teens are reporting having sex now than 25 years ago.

In Lawrence, among the poorest cities in the country, the decision means the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy will lose the $749,000 it receives annually, and will have to stop serving the city’s schools after next year, said, Nicole Castillo, the group’s policy director.

About 41 of every 1,000 teenaged girls in Lawrence ends up pregnant, according to birth records, making it one of highest teen pregnancy rates in Massachusetts and far above the national average of 26.6 per 1,000.

Jill Gwilt, who runs the West Virginia’s teen pregnancy prevention program, said it’s unlikely her non-profit organization, Mission West Virginia, will be able to replace the $1.7 million per year in federal funds it stands to lose.

She said Teaching Health Instead of Nagging Kids (THINK) could no longer serve 15,000 middle and high school students in Raleigh, Marion, Mercer and other rural counties.

That’s OK with groups like Ascend, which advocates for education focused on abstinence instead of also teaching safe sex for teenagers. Abstinence is also the approach favored by Health Secretary Tom Price and Valerie Huber, chief of staff for the Office of Adolescent Health and a former president of Ascend.

Ascend’s website says that ”teens can and increasingly do avoid sex” and its approach tries to “empower teens to make the healthiest sexual decision, which is to wait for sex regardless of their previous sexual experience.”

“By contrast,” it adds, the other approach “assumes that teens can’t or won’t avoid sexual experimentation.”

Ascend said an example of how the approaches differ is that abstinence discusses contraceptives but does not demonstrate how to use them.

Conversely, Julie Downs, who helped develop the program “17 Weeks,” states in a video on its website that the “aim is not to tell girls what to do or not to do, Our job is really to help people make the decision they want to make, and some girls want to have sex.”

Downs, an associate psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, describes “17 Weeks” approach to educators and parents this way: “Even if a girl wants to have sex, they don’t want to get an infection. If they want to engage in a behavior, we can help them decide to make that behavior something that is safer.”

Girls in the program’s video trailer are shown choosing not to have sex, but others practice putting condoms on zucchinis, and discussing how to get their partners to use the contraceptive.

Contact reporter Kery Murakami at kmurakami@cnhi.com.