FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: |
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Bill Barker (202) 419-3420 |
February 7, 2006 |
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President Requests $27 Million Budget Boost for Failed Abstinence-Only Programs Amidst Deep Cuts for Essential Programs
Statement from James Wagoner, President, Advocates for Youth
In the context of a budget that slashes spending for essential programs, from nutrition to health care to education, the $27 million increase for failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs is dumbfounding. Additional funding proposed in the President’s new budget would bring the total allocated for these ineffective and dangerous programs to $204 million in 2007.
Making the request even more astounding is that it follows just 32 days after the Society for Adolescent Medicine, in one of the most exhaustive reviews to date of government-funded abstinence-only programs, rejected current administration policy that promotes abstinence as the only sexual health prevention strategy for young people.
The report stated:
“… federal abstinence-only-until-marriage policy is ethically problematic, as it excludes accurate information about contraception, misinforms by overemphasizing or misstating the risks of contraception, and fails to require the use of scientifically accurate information while promoting approaches of questionable value…. Abstinence-only programs threaten fundamental human rights to health, information, and life.”
The decision is even more difficult to defend, given that:
- Curricula used by a majority of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs provide false and misleading information, according to the House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform – Minority Staff;
- State evaluations, including one from the President’s home state of Texas, already show these programs don’t work to delay sexual initiation;
- The nation’s most trusted medical organizations, such as the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM), all support comprehensive sex education.
Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs are a waste of taxpayers’ dollars. At a time when the budget deficit is soaring, Medicare is being slashed, and essential programs for the poor and disabled are being terminated, shouldn’t the President instead be cutting programs that have no proven effectiveness?
At the very least, the federal government should be in the business of providing medically accurate information to the youth of this country. It’s time to get real and quit allowing ideology to trump public health science.
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Advocates for Youth is a national, nonprofit organization that creates programs and supports policies that help young people make safe, responsible decisions about their sexual and reproductive health.
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