 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Congress to go after comp sex ed money...again. Get ready to fight back! |
| Tuesday, 08 March 2011 09:47 |
|
by Sarah Audelo, Senior Manager, Domestic Policy This week, Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health will be holding a hearing entitled, “Setting Fiscal Priorities in Healthcare Funding.” At first glance, you may be thinking, “Oooh! Congress is finally getting it right! A hearing on how congressionally mandated studies show Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage programs DO NOT work! Let’s really talk about fiscal responsibility! Success!”
In case you forgot, PREP funds programs that are medically accurate, age appropriate culturally relevant AND place “substantial emphasis” on both abstinence and contraception. When using PREP dollars, states must also teach three of the following adulthood preparation subjects: healthy relationships, adolescent development, financial literacy, parent-child communication, educational and career success and/or healthy life skills. At this point you may be wondering what about PREP is duplicative to which Republicans would answer (drumroll please)…. Financial literacy. Yep. The memo written by Majority Staff describing PREP states,
Now it would be easy to stop here and just roll your eyes and how wack it sounds to go after a comprehensive sex education program through a financial literacy lens. But we all know Republicans are smarter than that. Just take a look at the witness list and you find all the answers. The first witness listed is The Honorable Ernest Istook, a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation, former member of Congress and otherwise known as one of the biggest champions of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Do a quick google search and you’ll find that Istook was one of the members of Congress responsible for the creation of the Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) funding. CBAE poured hundreds of millions of dollars into harmful abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that not only spread misinformation about condoms, contraception, HIV and more to young people, but also funded organizations like crisis pregnancy centers. While this funding no longer exists (thanks to President Obama zeroing it out in his budget in 2010), we know many Republicans, including the Chair of the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, Congressman Pitts, are eager to revitalize funding for the CBAE. Check out this letter he wrote the Appropriations committee just last month in support of CBAE. Funny how this is the perfect opportunity to investigate how much money is wasted on Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, but instead PREP’s comprehensive, evidence-based focus is on the target list. Hypocrisy much? I feel like this is the theme of the year… So while it didn’t seem possible for Republicans to hit at any other issues facing youth sexual health and rights, here they go. It’s incredibly possible and expected that House Republicans WILL introduce a bill to defund PREP, so get ready. We’re going to need you all to speak up in defense of PREP (Which, by the way, 43 states, DC, Puerto Rico and Micronesia applied for. How many jobs do you think $45 million affects?). The hearing is set for Wednesday at 10am EST. I’ll be live-tweeting under @AmplifyTweets. Let’s see what they have to say… |
