Putting abstinence-only funding on the chopping block

March 25, 2008

James Dobson’s Focus on the Family issued an alert to its membership yesterday with a banner headline: “Liberals Want Federal Abstinence Education Cut.” To which I thought, “It’s about time.” From the religious right group’s report:

President Bush’s 2009 budget proposal includes $204 million to support Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE), but dozens of liberals in Congress want all abstinence money axed from the budget.

Seventy-six representatives — all abortion supporters — have signed a letter sponsored by Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., asking the House Appropriations Committee to cut all abstinence-education funding. The letter follows another letter, sent by Reps. Lee Terry, R-Neb., and Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., urging support for CBAE funding and current guidelines.

The debate surfaces on the heels of a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that shows one in four teen girls in the U.S. has a sexually transmitted infection (STI).

“With 3 million teen girls infected with STIs, safer sex in adolescents does not exist,” said Linda Klepacki, sexual health analyst for Focus on the Family Action. “For the current and future health of teens, we must teach them how to have strong relationships not based on sex.”

I was especially struck by the notion that the timing of the CDC report was somehow helpful to the right’s efforts to promote abstinence-only funding. If anything, the opposite is true — as the rates of sexually-transmitted diseases go up, it’s all the more important to offer quality education on sexual health.

It’s quite simple: the evidence that abstinence-only is more effective doesn’t exist.

ABC News had this report last night:

The political and ethical debate over what to teach teenagers about sex is being reinvigorated after a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. Now some say the study, the first of its kind, reveals why it’s so important to teach teens not to have sex at all; others argue that the study proves that federally funded abstinence-only education isn’t working.

Stoking the fire, a study published in the April edition of the Journal of Adolescent Health found that those who received comprehensive sex education were 50 percent less likely to become pregnant than those who received abstinence-only education. The study also found that those who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to become pregnant than those who received no sex education at all.

“I do think that there’s strong evidence that comprehensive sex education is more effective at preventing teen pregnancies,” said Pamela Kohler, lead author of the study and program manager at the University of Washington’s Center for AIDS and STD. “I think we pretty much debunked the myth that comprehensive sex education causes teenagers to have sex.”

Thus far, it appears conservative groups have missed the memo. For that matter, as I understand it, House Republicans and Bush administration officials are prepared to fight to keep the funding for ineffective programs in place.

One wonders just how many more studies it will take.

Good, hopefully next up will be the faith based BS.

  • Eliot Spitzer dumped all federal funding of abstinence-only programs. Guess he was practicing what he preached and setting himself up as a role model.

  • These are the same groups that feel women should be subservient to their men and their church. Women are nothing but chattel to them and ensuring that a woman is always in the position to be needing someone to save her (be the man in her life) is their main cause. They con’t care at all about women unless they submit to their god and the man who in turn is supposed to submit to god. That’s the hierarchy…god, man, fetus, child, woman.

    Pain and poverty would be severely reduced if people (girls and boys) knew more about their own bodies and how they work.

    But to a gooper, ignorance is bliss. Just ask daddy. He will protect you.

  • Methinks what the Religiopolitical Right really wants taught as sex education is the notion that “national and racial duty” justifies larger families, never mind whether the couple is married or not.

    (Up there, no doubt, with the outright orgies disguised as “camping trips” conducted back in Nazi Germany by the Hitler Youth and its girls’ branch, the League of German Maidens, in the name of Hitler, Germany and the so-called “Aryan Master Race.”)

    And Another Thing:

    In Japan, a new book has been published explaining to middle-school-age students what the adult film industry is really like (as if anybody of middle-school age really wanted to star in adult films when they left high school….)

  • It’s quite simple: the evidence that abstinence-only is more effective doesn’t exist.

    Just like the evidence that Jesus ever existed.

    Ain’t any, except for the gospels, which weren’t written by anyone who was there at the time.

    My point of course is that waiting for fundamentalists to reason is like waiting for a horse to lay an egg. And speaking of eggs, could someone ask the fundies peddling this abstinence crap if the pill = abortion? I’d like to see the ones who believe that become the pariahs they deserve to be.

  • They say, “We must teach them how to have strong relationships not based on sex,” but then they do nothing to do that.

    Abstinence-education is nothing but a crock. A way to shovel money into the hands of people who don’t actually care for the health and well-being of people – at least, if you count by results and not their words. They’ll tell you pretty things until the cows come home, but they spend no time actually making sure the cows don’t wander away in the first place.

  • The solution is simple—all funding legislation starts in the House. Dems control the House, and will widen their majority in November. Don’t give the “Crawford Village Drunkard” and his holier-than-thou bedmates anything between now and the end of his term.

    Make “the Unitary Executive” into nothing more than “a comma….”

  • I’m sorry, it’s not very conservative to have an opinion on people’s sex lives or how they raise their kids? Government needs to stay out of people’s private lives; that’s the conservative viewpoint.

    Of course these guys have NEVER been conservatives.

  • Abstinence only education doesn’t work because:

    1.) It goes against the very forces of nature — after all, we were made to mate.

    2.) Once you tell a kid they shouldn’t do something, they want to do it more. And once they find out it feels good, they’ll stop believing much of what else you have told them about what is good and bad.

    3.) It teaches that sex is dirty and nasty and ugly. Of course, it is very rarely any of those things.

    Having a healthy attitude toward sex, telling the truth about it, and providing contraception are the keys to reducing underage pregnancy and/or STDs. Just look at countries that are more open about sex and compare their unwanted/underage pregnancy rates to ours and you’ll see a sharp contrast.

  • Let me just say, a propos of what Racer X said, that Jesus was a real historical figure mentioned by the secular historian Josephus. The content and legacy of Christianity are fair game for debate, and as someone who has little love for the Dobsonites I’m sure we’d agree on much, but facts are facts.

    Abstinence-only education is silly, and the other comments here are about right. What we on the left need to reiterate is that the religious right wants to ban abortion on pro-life principles despite the certain knowledge that this will cause more fatalities among women who have to seek underground abortions, and that they evidently want kids to get married as early as possible (no sex before marriage and so on) despite the statistical evidence that teenage marriages tend to fall apart more often than ones formed later in life. There is no consistent philosophy or viewpoint here, it’s just a grab bag of half-formed ideas.

  • Erik, there is nothing conservative about the current flavor of conservatives. These are neoconservatives: all war, all the time; in your lives at every step – except to help you.

    This is why the vast majority of conservatives left the GOP. They are not being fiscally smart. they are intrusive into people’s lives, they are killing our people in a long, drawn-out, unnecessary war of choice…they are everything BUT what the republican’s used to stand for.

    If you talk about a party brand, the goops are no longer. This is a party that votes for party sake, not people. This is the party that divides for spite, not for anything positive for people. This is a party who espouses compassion but is anything but.

    This is a party of war.

    This ia a party of bad decisions.

    This is a party against the people – and for the corporations only.

    The list could go on and on. And, if we are VERY VERY lucky, this will be the end of the neocon take over of America.

  • mark d @ #9:

    “It teaches that sex is dirty…

    only if you do it right. (h/t to woody allen)

  • damn, ms jones, ya beat me to it.

    but it’s nice to know that there are others out there whose heads are stuffed with useless information.

  • I wondered how long it would take for someone to drop the Woody Allen reference.

    Too bad I only thought about it after I hit “Submit Comment” (and I mean “hit” in a totally non-sexual way).

    🙂

  • I think everyone is missing the point, the fact that it’s not working doesn’t matter. Trying to reason with the unreasonable is pointless.

    The only way religion can exist is for people to reject reason and I think once you accept jesus (reject reason) your brain has to accept other illogicalities in order to accept religion and all that it teaches.

    I know there are plenty of religious people that have logic, but if you pin them down, they can not possibly accept the bible. The two can only exist if one, logic or religious belief, is compromised. We give them a huge pass, either you believe the Earth is 6000 years old or you don’t, either you believe we are the descendants of one mating pair, or you don’t, either you think think we (all earth creatures) are the only forms of life in the universe or you don’t.

    You can reconcile it in your head as the bible is simply short stories meant metaphorically and not meant to be an actual historical document. That is fine, but it’s a cop out, either god or jesus had a hand (through others) in writing the bible or they didn’t and if they didn’t, who gives a crap, and if they did it should be read as fact.

    Anyways, I got off topic. You can have a thousand reports, and they will never accept what is right in front of their faces. They fell like teaching children about sex is wrong and that is that. The world needs to quit wasting their time trying to talk sense to the senseless.

  • It is so sad that Bush would rather let thousands of people; adults and children, die because he doesn’t allow a certain amount of money go to some countries that disagree with him.

    Is this what a ‘Compassionate Christian” is?

    How is this not pre-meditated murder?

    Its just as bad as sending young people into a country without proper safety equipment and telling them they are “fighting for your country”, knowing that this is a lie !

    So murder is not illegal in America apparently.

    How sad to be an American citizen at this time.

    🙁

  • What really kills me about the supporters of abstinence only education is that they trust their kids not to have sex after they have been told to abstain but they don’t trust their kids with the information that would allow them to practice safe sex should the will be weak and they do decide to have sex.

    What it comes down to is that they want their kids to be ignorant as long as possible so that they can mold them into whatever form they want them. If they teach their kids to think, then the kids will question them and they don’t have the answers to their kids’ questions.

  • I despise the argument that “kids will do it anyway, so don’t bother trying to stop them.”

    What if in the 1860s, Lincoln said “Well, the Southern states aren’t going to just give up their slaves, so we may as well let them secede. We should forget about this ‘freedom-only’ approach, and just try and teach Southerners how to be nice to their slaves, and we’ll encourage them to let them go, even though we know they won’t”

    What if in the 1960s, Dr. King, JFK, LBJ and others said “You know what? Southern whites just don’t like blacks. The whites are going to segregate themselves and mistreat blacks no matter what we do. Let’s just forget about this whole ‘justice-only’ approach, and try to teach the white folks how to discriminate in non-lethal ways. We’ll give them all tear gas and rubber bullets, so they don’t have to resort to lynching and shotguns.”

    It’s awfully tolerant of you all to tell Christians their morality is stupid. I don’t think that it would matter if abstinence education did work. I think most everyone here would still think it was a bad, antiquated idea. So ask yourself…am I against abstinence education because I don’t think it works? Or do I just “believe” (in a rational way, of course, not like those irrational Christians) that everyone ought to have the right to have sex, even though it causes lots of harmful consequences to individuals, and society at large?

  • So why do the righties think that teaching a human whose whole life experience has been one hormonal and growth stage after another to disregard their hormones and everything will be cool is the smartest way to go? Why is shrouding the human experience in mystery and ignorance a teaching exercise? I thought education was the exact opposite of that.

    Anyone else find it odd that the subset of Americans that are most likely to homeschool their kids anyway are so worried about what the public schools are teaching kids? Sex is one of those areas where parents need to get involved with their kids lives and be an active agent in their growth rather than acting embarrassed and leaving to some strange teacher tell tell their kids what sex is all about. For folks like Dobson and his followers, it’s obvious this is an area that they are either lacking in knowledge or too shy about talking with their offspring. Look, if you made kids over a decade ago, should should know enough about human nature and sex to be able to speak to your kids about it. My theory is that the religious right are strong proponents of the Immaculate Conception theory of how their kids got onto this planet so that way their kids won’t have to think their parents have sex (Eeeeeeewwww.)

  • So ask yourself…am I against abstinence education because I don’t think it works? — Addison, @21

    We are talking about abstinence ONLY education here. There’s a difference.

    I think every parent’s first line of defense is to try and teach their children to abstain — until they’re mature enough to take full responsibility (including financial) for the well-being of another human human being — the possible result of heedlessly following natural instincts. But you have to consider the possibility that that teaching won’t “take” and that nature will overcome nurture at some point.

    So, tell me… Would you rather have your 15yr old daughter come home pregnant or your 15yr old son infected because there was no second line of defense (education beyond *just* abstinence)?

    “Keep your legs crossed” and “Keep your pants zipped up” is, certainly, very good advice. But it can’t be the *only* advice one offers to someone who’s only half-adult emotionally, but whose hormones are raging at their highest level.

    To answer your question, then: At at least as far as *I* am concerned, it has nothing at all to do with my belief that “everyone has a right to have sex”. It has all to do with being a pragmatic; abstinence *only* doesn’t work (I could have told them that before they sank millions into it, too) and I want to spare my children the misery of discovering it for themselves.

  • One wonders just how many more studies it will take.

    It will only take one study. One that supports their religious insanity. That one will be accepted, and triumphantly proclaimed everywhere by the faith-based.

  • Are we supposed to find wisdom in a proponent of child-abuse (coupled with a little Scriptural reading right before it, of course) and in some states in this country would be in jail for what he advocates?

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