Abstinence Education Funding Should Be Restored

Teenage girls in Greensboro, North Carolina are being offered a dollar a day for not getting pregnant. A group called College Bound Sisters was founded at the University of North Carolina by Hazel Brown, a maternity nurse. Each 12-to-18-year-old girl in the program is paid one dollar per day to remain pregnancy-free and attend weekly meetings. College Bound Sisters' participants pursue three goals: Avoid pregnancy. Graduate from high school. Enroll in college. The program makes an initial $7 deposit into an interest-bearing college fund for each girl. Some girls have amassed more than $2000. Nearly all who finish the program go on to graduate from college. The program is funded by a grant from the state.

Bribing is one way to get results. Abstinence education takes many forms. During his two terms, President Bush doggedly pressed for and convinced Congress to increase spending to teach abstinence in public schools and community programs. Most of the funding requires an "abstinence-only" approach: teaching young people that abstinence is the only surefire way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

But that just got harder. The Obama Administration's 2010 budget zeroes out the two largest of the nation's three federally-funded abstinence programs, Title V and Community-Based Abstinence Education. Congress passed this budget which transfers the funding for both of these programs to a new Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative that rejects the teaching of abstinence-only. Another, smaller funding stream was "similarly redirected."

Title V expired June 30. Comprehensive sex-educators' critique of the program is that it omits the how-tos of contraceptive devices. In other words: no condom demonstrations. They also label as unrealistic Title V's  "expected standard for human sexual activity," which is "a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage." They argue that this insults homosexual kids and those raised in communities where single-motherhood is the norm. But that's the point of these programs...to steer students away from these lifestyles.

Valerie Huber, Executive Director of the National Abstinence Education Association is working to see Title V revived. She says it's happened.before. That alarms comprehensive sex ed groups. The Feminist Majority's email blast argues that, "spending for abstinence-only sex education is not only wasteful, but the programs put young women's health at risk." But Huber says abstinence is the only approach that removes all risk. New research documents a 50% decrease in sexual onset among teens enrolled in abstinence education.

Programs like College Bound Sisters work on the premise that there's more to successful sex ed programs than ‘just saying no.'Twelve-year-old Chelsey Davis is participating because, she says, "I might want to be a teacher for a few years and then be a lawyer." Another participant, Amanda Davis says, "I might want to be an actor or singer." Educators agree such goalsetting is good. All teens should be taught that abstinence until marriage will help them reach their goals.