TW: As I have posted before, the cultural conservatives heart themselves some abstinence education to the tune of billions since the days of Reagan accelerated by the recently departed W. Bush. I would argue that de-funding these initiatives would be a nice starting point for some of that fiscal religion the Republicans have recently found. Thankfully, Obama appears ready to restore some sanity to our sex ed programming nationally. Including requiring only "medically accurate" sex ed, surely a death knell for abstinence only (and btw if we required "scientifically based" science education the creationists would be in trouble too.).
From Economist:
"JUDITH VOGTLI, director of an upstate New York-based abstinence organisation called ProjecTruth, is worried that the golden age of “abstinence-only” education may have come to an end. George Bush junior helped increase funding for this kind of sex education—which focuses on chastity as the way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and discusses condoms only in terms of failure—to over $175m a year...her organisation, funded entirely by a government grant, is trying to go about business as usual. That means teaching about abstaining from sex, drugs and alcohol in New York schools and holding its sixth annual abstinence Creativity Contest, to which students submitted essays, poems, artwork and music on the theme of “Waiting is easier because…”[TW: picture TW barfing at this point in the article]
...Since the start of abstinence-only programs, the federal government has spent over $1.5 billion on them, but the United States still has one of the highest teen-pregnancy rates of any developed country.
...there has been no randomised study showing that abstinence-only education delays sexual activity, and research from the University of Washington suggests that teens who receive comprehensive sex education have a 50% lower risk of becoming pregnant than those enrolled in abstinence-only courses.
Abstinence-only advocates want the government to let school districts choose which type of sex education they prefer. But in an ominous sign for them, the new Congress is already shifting its emphasis. Louise Slaughter, a congresswoman from New York and a former scientist, has introduced a bill that would fund “medically accurate” comprehensive sex education in schools. It is likely to pass. "
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13109923
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