NPR: Abstinence-Only Education Facing Funding Cut

Abstinence-Only Education Facing Funding Cut

Get ready for another cultural battle.

Last week, Democratic Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, made it clear that Democrats do not intend to re-fund a $50 million grant program for abstinence-only sex education. Dingell says he considers the funded programs "a colossal failure."

Dingell and other Democrats were given fresh ammunition when Mathematica Policy Research Inc. released a federally funded study of four abstinence-only programs. It found that "the programs had no effect on the sexual abstinence of youth." (Previous studies had indicated similar results.) Dingell says he plans to let the programs' funding expire on June 30 and replace them with funding for both abstinence and safe-sex education.

But conservative religious groups are fighting back. Over 100 supporters were on Capitol Hill Tuesday to lobby for retaining the abstinence-only education. On Saturday, The Christian Post reported that religious leaders like Tony Perkins are arguing the Mathematica report ignored several important points and was too narrowly focused on four of a possible 900 programs.

Michael Craven, founding director of the Center for Christ & Culture, wrote in another column for the Post that he felt the programs studied were aimed at children too young to absorb the message and needed to be continued into high school. (In fact, the Mathmatica report also supports this statement.)

But many people who support the idea of abstinence education also believe that it should be combined with more information about safe sex. As Tarryl Jackson writes for The Jackson Citizen Patriot of Michigan "...why not just give teenagers all the facts about sexuality and sexual health? Ignorance is not bliss."

1:45 PM ET | 05-23-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

These radical Christians seem to believe that if we delegate abortions to the back alleys and gays to the closet all will be fine. They can't seriously believe that they can legislate away the causes for these two issues. Someone get out their magic wand. When will the media begin talking to main stream Christians? When will the the media realize that not all of us Christians are fanatics?

Sent by Lynne | 10:28 AM ET | 05-25-2007

As a product of the "Utahnian" abstinence only system of education, I do not support this method. The most apparent flaw I find is that abstinence does nothing to deter the wildly out-of-control hormonal change students undergo from late childhood through high school. If one chooses to engage in sexual acts, wouldn't it be better if they knew ahead of time how to protect themselves from disease and pregnancy? The biological change in students isn't deterred by abstinence-only education. Public schools should be allowed to teach about all the methods of protection. And if parents are so concerned about it, shouldn't they take the responsibility to educate their own children about this issue? Abstinence-only really only passes the resposibility on to the already burdened educators of this country.

Sent by Lucia Bisbee | 9:58 PM ET | 05-26-2007

I agree that abstinence-only education does not work, and I don't want my tax dollars used to support abstinence-only programs. The assumptions about morality and society that underlie abstinence-only education programs are negative towards sexuality in general and delusional towards what really happens to young people. Sex happens, whether you believe it should happen or not, and young people will have sex. Pretending that by not informing them about sex that they will refrain from exploring sex is destructive and deceptive, because the result is that young people will put themselves at risk when they do have sex, because they don't know about the real risks.

Also, many abstinence-only programs use guilt and the idea of purity to motivate young people. If young people then have sex after promising to be "pure," they are more likely to have risky sex out of a sense of guilt, a desire to punish themselves for transgressions. This pattern puts young people at much greater risk than just telling them about sex and giving them the tools to make good decisions.

Sent by Rachel N H | 11:50 AM ET | 05-29-2007

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