Uncategorized

Funding Continuing for Abstinence Only Programs

Long-supported primarily by Republicans, abstinence-only sex education programs are surviving the Democratic take-over of Congress. Funding for such programs, which receive $200 million a year from the federal government, could even increase, with the help of House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey, D-WI, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Obey is supporting abstinence-only programs, despite a federally-funded study released this spring, which found that such programs are ineffective, in an effort to avoid “contentious moral issues,” according to Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy Report.

Advocates for Youth president James Wagoner told the Los Angeles Times that: “The Democrats… used the abstinence-only issue as the cornerstone of the claim that the Bush administration was putting ideology and politics ahead of science… Now they suddenly have gone mute and silent when their own people are in power.”

Sources:

Kaiser Daily Women�s Health Policy Report 10/15/07; Los Angeles Times 10/14/07; Science Daily 10/14/07

Support eh ERA banner