Washington Watch: Will Congress move on abstinence-only efforts?
Washington Watch: Will Congress move on abstinence-only efforts?
By Cynthia Dailard
Senior Public Policy Associate
The Alan Guttmacher Institute
Washington, DC
In his fiscal year 2003 budget request to Congress, President George W. Bush proposed increasing funding for abstinence-only education by 33%, for an overall funding level of $135 million. The president has justified this request on the notion of "parity" — that the federal government should be spending the same amount on abstinence-unless-married education as it spends on providing contraceptive services to teens.
This funding would be tied to the federal government’s stringent definition of abstinence education, which condemns sex outside of marriage — for people of any age. It also prohibits any positive discussion of contraception (in effect allowing discussion only of failure rates) and, among other things, requires programs to teach that sex outside of marriage has harmful physical and psychological effects.
This definition was first enacted — very quietly — as part of the 1996 welfare reform law. It now applies to two other, newer federal programs that also support abstinence-unless-married education. (See the February 2001 issue of Contraceptive Technology Update, p. 22, "What’s the next move in abstinence-only efforts?") But with Congress poised to reauthorize the welfare law this year, the content of this federal definition and the $50 million in annual funds for abstinence-unless-married education housed in the welfare law are likely to receive more scrutiny than ever before.
Parity argument flawed
While the president’s proposal will certainly strengthen the hands of conservatives seeking to protect the 1996 welfare language, the parity argument unfairly compares apples and oranges by equating funding for education programs and funding for medical services delivered under Medicaid and Title X of the Public Health Service Act. Medicaid is the health insurance program for the nation’s poorest Americans and reimburses physicians and other health care providers for rendered services. Title X supports the delivery of a broad range of contraceptives and related health services to low-income Americans at 4,500 family planning clinics nationwide. These services include Pap smears; breast exams; screening and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases; and screening for hypertension, diabetes, and anemia.
A more appropriate comparison, if one is to be made, is between what the federal government is spending on abstinence-unless-married education and what it may be spending on more comprehensive sexuality education that includes discussion of abstinence and contraception. But there currently is no federal program devoted to supporting more comprehensive sexual education.
Recent research, moreover, highlights the importance of providing teens with information about contraception and abstinence and sheds light on the factors responsible for recent declines in teen-age pregnancy and interventions that work:
• Three-quarters of the decline in teen pregnancy between 1988 and 1995 was due to improved contraceptive use among sexually active teens; only one-quarter was due to increased abstinence.1
• While more comprehensive sexuality education programs can help teens to delay sexual activity and to reduce the number of partners and increase contraceptive use among sexually active teens, there is no reliable evidence to date supporting the effectiveness of abstinence-only education.2
• Programs that encourage students to take a virginity pledge promising to abstain from sexual activity until marriage can help some teens to delay the initiation of intercourse. Yet teens who break their pledge are less likely than those who never pledged in the first place to use contraception once they become sexually active.3
• Developed countries that have lower rates of teen-age pregnancy than the United States tend to provide comprehensive sexual information in schools.4 U.S. policy, in contrast, exclusively promotes abstinence, and this country has among the highest teen pregnancy rates of any developed country.
Fortunately, some members of Congress have responded to this research by introducing legislation they hope will influence the debates over welfare reform and abstinence-only education.
The Family Life Education Act, introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) in December on a bipartisan basis, would provide $100 million annually to the states to fund more comprehensive sexual education that discusses abstinence and contraception. Also in December, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) introduced the Preventing Teen Pregnancy Act, which provides $20 million annually in federal funding for direct grants to organizations that replicate programs that have been scientifically proven to delay teen’s initiation of sex, reduce their sexual risk-taking practices, or reduce teen pregnancy. Finally, Rep. Ben Cardin (D-MD) introduced his own comprehensive welfare reform proposal that contains significant funding to support and replicate best practices to reduce teen pregnancy.
Whether these or similar proposals ultimately will be incorporated into any welfare reform legislation signed into law by the president, or whether U.S. policy will continue to emphasize abstinence-unless-married education, remains to be seen.
References
1. Darroch JE, Singh S. Why Is Teenage Pregnancy Declining? The Roles of Abstinence, Sexual Activity, and Contraceptive Use. New York City: The Alan Guttmacher Institute; 1999.
2. Kirby D. Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy. Washington, DC: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, May 2001. These findings were echoed in a recent report issued by the U.S. Surgeon General: Satcher D. The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior. Rockville, MD: Office of the Surgeon General; 2001.
3. Bearman PS, Bruckner H. Promising the future: virginity pledges and first intercourse. Am J Soc 2001; 106:859-913.
4. Darroch JE, Frost J, Singh S, et al., Teenage Sexual and Reproductive Behavior in Developed Countries: Can More Progress be Made? New York City: The Alan Guttmacher Institute; 2001.
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