Oh great...the abstinence kooks are pleading for health care bill funding

[alp227]

Abstinence proponents look for aid from new health bill
by Rob Stein
The Washington Post
December 27, 2009 (page A3)

Proponents of sex education classes that focus on encouraging teenagers to remain virgins until marriage are hoping that the rescue plan for the nation's health-care system will also save their programs, which are facing extinction because of a cutoff of federal funding.

The health-care reform legislation pending in the Senate includes $50 million for programs that states could use to try to reduce pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease among adolescents by teaching to them to delay when they start having sex.

Under the federal budget signed by President Obama, such programs would no longer have funds targeted for them.

"We're optimistic," said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association, which is lobbying to maintain funding for the programs. "Nothing is certain, but we're hopeful."

Critics of sex education programs focused on abstinence, however, are fighting to permanently end funding, saying there is clear evidence that the approach is unsuccessful.

"This is a last-ditch attempt by conservatives to resuscitate a program that has been proven to be ineffective," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a Washington-based advocacy group. "This is the failed abstinence-only model that research has shown is ineffective."

During President George W. Bush's administration, abstinence programs received more than $100 million per year directly in federal funding and about $50 million in federal money funneled through the states. But the effort came under mounting criticism when studies concluded that the approach was ineffective and signs indicated the long decline in teen pregnancies was slowing.

As part of Obama's first budget, Congress approved a request for more than $110 million for a new "teenage pregnancy prevention" initiative that would only fund programs that have been "proven effective through rigorous evaluation," which would effectively eliminate abstinence programs. The program would be run by a new Office of Adolescent Health in the Health and Human Services Department.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/26/AR2009122600762_pf.html

If this health care bill will waste millions on ineffective, dishonest abstinence propaganda but does not have a public option, I'm packing my bags and moving to Canada! What a great government we're living in with a president who vowed "change"! Let's flood the White House with letters and phone calls urging Obama to veto the bill if it deposits a single penny into the abstinence lobbyist coffers!

[Kdillard]

1. They can plead all they want they are not going to get funding unless they change

Their philosophy to something that actually works. I am actually glad to see this .

[bluestateguy]

2. And they will still vote against the bill anyway

even if they got all the money they asked for.

Abstinence education is not health care.

[newfie11]

4. yep

and how long has this been tried. It doesn't work!

[XemaSab]

3. Abstinence-only is the modern-day equivalent of "Just Say No."

Under the "Just Say No" school of drug education, kids were taught that passing a joint around during a reggae concert is no better than shooting smack in a gas-station bathroom or smoking crack in an alley behind a bar, and that if you so much as touch dope you will die a wastrel and your parents won't even come to your funeral they will be so ashamed of you.

The problem with this school of thought is that the first time the kid meets someone cooler than they are who smokes dope, the kid assumes all drugs are okay and sets out to do hard drugs.

Similarly, the first time a kid has a peer or potential date who is having sex, they assume sex is okay and they go ahead and do it.

Abstinence-only is a one-way ticket to teen pregnancy. x(

[and-justice-for-all]

5. National Abstinence Education Association are fear mongering liars

a typical faith based initiative that SHOULD NOT receive federal dollars.

However, if the program of Sex Education is taught thoroughly and at the end of the session the teacher would also state that "also, abstinence is always an option and you do not have to have sex until you are ready." then that is ok.

Abstinence Only education is a joke and a ripe off; advocating to not have sex "until marriage" is a religious proclamation and not based in reason.

""This is a last-ditch attempt by conservatives to resuscitate a program that has been proven to be ineffective," Correct, because you can not stop animal instinct.

[alp227]

6. "typical faith based initiative that SHOULD NOT receive federal dollars" BINGO

I also should add that abstinence education might as well violate the First Amendment - it pushes a religious ideology of virginity until marriage. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are the biggest pushers of "abstain from sex until marriage" as far as I know. That idea lacks any real scientific merit.