Censorship. Misinformation. Indoctrination.
Parents don't associate these words with their children's education. Taxpayers don't expect such practices
to be funded by millions of federal dollars. Yet when President Bush proposed a $39 million increase in federal funding for
abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education in his 2006 budget, he asked Congress to do just that.
If
the president gets what he asked for, the federal government will throw nearly $206 million in the coming fiscal year into
programs that are ineffective at best and dangerous at worst.
Truth. Accuracy. Responsibility. The Responsible Education About Life Act, or REAL, that was recently introduced by lawmakers in both houses of Congress is the remedy to unproven, misleading and
harmful abstinence-only sex education.
Federal abstinence-only programs focus exclusively on abstinence and often are prohibited from discussing
contraceptives except in the context of their failure rates. REAL programs, on the other hand, would teach that abstinence
is the only sure way to avoid pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections. They would also include information about how
to use contraceptives to prevent pregnancy and infection.
In the current political climate, the chance that this common-sense legislation will become law is zero.
The chance that abstinence-only programs get a substantial increase in federal funding is 100 percent.
In a budget that includes the deepest cuts to domestic spending in two decades, what's responsible about
increasing funding for ineffective abstinence-only education?
According to the most recent statistics, 822,000 females between 15 and 19 got pregnant in 2000; each year,
approximately 9.1 million of those between 15 and 24 are infected with sexually transmitted infections, including one-half
of all new HIV infections. Yet, evaluations assessing five years of abstinence-only programs in Pennsylvania and nine other
states show little short-term and no long-term impact in delaying sex among teens.
When teens do initiate sex, they are a third less likely to use contraception, putting themselves at risk
for pregnancy and disease.
But studies consistently demonstrate that comprehensive programs that provide information about abstinence
and effective use of contraception can help delay the start of sexual activity and increase condom use among sexually active
teens.
Yet there is currently no federal program dedicated to comprehensive sex education.
Leaving the effectiveness question aside, what about truth and accuracy?
A recent review of federally funded abstinence-only curricula prepared by Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif.,
found that more than two-thirds of the abstinence-only programs give out distorted information about contraceptives, misrepresent
the risks of abortion, blur religion and science, promote gender stereotypes, and contain basic scientific errors.
Pennsylvania has declined to take federal dollars for instruction that misleads and endangers young people.
Pennsylvania state tax dollars are being used more responsibly. State funding goes to a limited number of programs with demonstrated
effectiveness.
Yet, to evade the state's science-based, comprehensive sex-education policy, the U.S. Sens. Arlen
Specter and Rick Santorum, both Pennsylvania Republicans, have channeled federal abstinence-only funds through a back door.
They have contracted directly with abstinence-only programs that lack state oversight, without any showing that those programs
actually work. Defending his budget, President Bush rightly asserted, "A taxpayer dollar ought to be spent wisely or not spent
at all." In continuing to fund abstinence-only education and in further asking for an increase in spending, the Bush administration,
in partnership with Pennsylvania's senators, has shown that it is not interested in spending wisely or responsibly.
When it comes to protecting America's youth, REAL is clearly the wise choice. Unfortunately, under the president's
spendthrift approach to sex education, it is precisely America's youth that will continue to pay too high a price for government
irresponsibility.
Nancy Hopkins is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.
Louise Melling is the director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.
