Tuesday, July 03, 2007

One Abstinence Program Down, Many More to Go

The federal Title V abstinence education program has expired -- however, President Bush is still looking to increase the amount of abstinence-only dollars from $163 million to $191 million for the fiscal year 2008.

Abstinence-only funds require that its recipients teach that sex outside of marriage has harmful physical and psychological effects and bans most discussions concerning condoms and other contraceptive methods. These programs alienate children of single or non-heterosexual parents, sexual minority youth, and teens who have already chosen to have sex. In it's earlier versions, this program also implied that children who had been abused or raped had been "sexually active," but thankfully that had changed. Still, there are a lot of people this program does not speak to. Is it possible to create a sex ed program that speaks to everyone?

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