$250 Million for Ineffective Abstinence-Only Education

by Alex DiBranco · 2010-03-27 14:00:00 UTC
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On the "bad news" side of health reform, we'll be wasting a quarter billion dollars over the next five years on ineffective, abstinence-only education programs.

Though Bush-era abstinence funding was kicked out of Obama's budget proposals, it found a way to get its clutches on taxpayer money through the health reform bill. Subjecting children to abstinence-only-until-marriage education is, quite simply, reprehensible. It exposes them to the risk of unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease by denying them accurate information about their bodies they have both a right to and a serious need for.

I was recently shocked to learn that a quarter of young people believe that using two condoms simultaneously is better than one. (It's NOT). But when we're essentially throwing away $250 million on ineffective abstinence-only education that refuses to educate students about practicing safe sex and how to correctly use contraception, I guess that's what happens.

I'm also just tickled to discover that you say one nice thing about abstinence programs, and suddenly conservatives are running all over the place claiming that abstinence has suddenly been found to be effective, after many years and many studies pointing to the exact opposite. If you've heard right-wingers glorifying the shiny new study that finds abstinence ed works, what they're talking about is this: a small study, the results of which still need to be duplicated on a broader scale, of 6th and 7th grade African-American students that found a unique new "abstinence-until-ready program" -- which skipped the moralizing, pressure to wait until marriage, and condom-bashing of traditional ab-only programs -- slightly decreased the students' likelihood of having sex in the next two years.

All regular abstinence programs, where this chunk of money will be going, still equal a massive "FAIL."

Photo credit: ewedistrict

Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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