While I was on vacation the House “democrats” voted to INCREASE funding for abstinence-only-before-marriage sex education. I’m outraged that anything this outrageous could have happened while I was gone!
To drive my point home, let’s review. Here is the legal definition of a program that meets the requirements of “abstinence-only”:
- Have as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity.
- Teach abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children.
- Teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems.
- Teach that a mutually faithful, monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity.
- Teach that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.
- Teach that bearing children out of wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society.
- Teach young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increases vulnerability to sexual advances.
- Teach the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.
You can read the entire bill, as it was passed in the house. However, here is the part that deals with abstinence-only “sex education”:
Provided further, That $136,664,000 shall be for making competitive grants to provide abstinence education (as defined by section 510(b)(2) of the Social Security Act) to adolescents, and for Federal costs of administering the grant: Provided further, That grants under the immediately preceding proviso shall be made only to public and private entities which agree that, with respect to an adolescent to whom the entities provide abstinence education under such grant, the entities will not provide to that adolescent any other education regarding sexual conduct, except that, in the case of an entity expressly required by law to provide health information or services the adolescent shall not be precluded from seeking health information or services from the entity in a different setting than the setting in which abstinence education was provided: Provided further, That within amounts provided herein for abstinence education for adolescents, up to $10,000,000 may be available for a national abstinence education campaign: Provided further, That in addition to amounts provided herein for abstinence education for adolescents, $4,500,000 shall be available from amounts available under section 241 of the Public Health Service Act to carry out evaluations (including longitudinal evaluations) of adolescent pregnancy prevention approaches: Provided further, That up to $2,000,000 shall be for improving the Public Assistance Reporting Information System, including grants to States to support data collection for a study of the system’s effectiveness.
I’ll be frank. This makes me want to vomit. Why on earth are we spending our money on this useless crud? But my arguments against abstinence-only “sex education”, as well as other’s arguments, are already relatively well documented in other posts. Mostly I wanted to keep everyone informed about this nonsense. And, as I have suggested before, please call your representatives and senators and tell them you want abstinence-only “sex education” out of the schools. And let me know if you do make those calls or send those e-mails – I’d love to hear about your experience!
I have yet to develop the ovarian force to actually call those people, but I e-mailed them all. Most of the government people from my state are fascists so I highly doubt it will do any good–I think they actually want our young people to have lots of unwanted pregnancies and STDs. Still, I will be interested in hearing back.
From Jim Inhofe: “Thank you for your correspondence. Even though I return to the state almost every weekend, I do not always have the opportunity to listen to everyone’s concerns, so I appreciate you taking the time to contact me. Again, thank you for your comments.”
From Tom Cole: “Thank you for contacting me to share your support for H.R. 1653, a bill to provide for the reduction of adolescent pregnancy, HIV rates, and other sexually transmitted diseases. I appreciate hearing from you on this important subject. California Representative Barbara Lee introduced H.R. 1653 on March 22, 2007. The Speaker referred the bill to the Energy and Commerce Committee, where it awaits consideration. As you know, H.R. 1653 would create programs to fund comprehensive sex education programs in the public schools to include instruction on contraception. While I do not sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee, I will keep your thoughts in mind should H.R. 1653 come before the whole House for a vote. Again, thank you for contacting me….” [blah blah blah
Susie Bright wrote a good article about this in her blog, stating how no congressperson wants to be on the record saying “Yeah, I want more money to teach kids about the reality of sex.” It’s something desperately needed, but yet is terribly repressed and controversial. Noone is willing to stand up and admit that adolescents are sexual, and that that’s an ok thing, and that they should be taught the things they need to know about sexuality.