Fifteen states turn up noses at money for abstinence education

Fifteen states around the union each have scorned as much as half a million dollars in federal education funding because the money would have to go toward abstinence education that excludes a regimen of contraceptive-pushing lessons, reports John Connolly, LifeSiteNews.com.

The program, forwarded by the Bush administration, is being snubbed by states that are caving to the demands of schools to push contraceptive education as the only effective method for discouraging teen pregnancies.

Abstinence programs across the country are distressed at the move by the governors, who don't seem to care about the tens of thousands of families who do not want their children to be indoctrinated with a contraceptive mentality.

"It's a crime," said Judith Vogtli, director of ProjecTruth, an abstinence-education program under the auspices of Catholic Charities of Buffalo, N.Y., in an interview with the Catholic News Service on January 3. "We are constantly under attack."

Virginia and New Mexico were the most recent to say they wouldn't tap into the $50 million fund for state programs managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, behind states such as Colorado and New York.

The states prefer to leave education up to organizations such as Planned Parenthood, that have a vested interest in recommending contraceptives and abortions to teens.

"The governors are saying, 'Even if this administration is going to continue to push abstinence-only, we in the states are going to do the right thing by teens and actually give them the information they need to actually prevent an unintended pregnancy,'" said Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The state governors are using a recent rise in teen pregnancies as proof that abstinence education doesn't work. The spike in teen pregnancies is the first in fifteen years. Abstinence education began in 1982 and expanded in 1995 as part of broader welfare reform. In 1995 and 1998, when abstinence education funding was significantly increased, the teen birth rate began its sharpest decline.

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[01/09/2008]

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