Just Say None of Your Business

By Amy Bryant, Choice! Magazine. Posted April 19, 2006.

On January 26, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it would continue to fund Community-Based Abstinence Education programs, further restricting the sexuality education of America's young people.

Like past years' decisions to continue funding for abstinence-only education, this recent announcement, which introduces a new set of guidelines, emerges not from logic or evidence, but from extreme right-wing ideology.

A History of Big Money and Bad Policy

From its inception, the abstinence-only education initiative has promoted a biased moralistic agenda instead of a public health agenda.

One billion federal tax dollars have gone into abstinence-only programs since 1996, and $115 million dollars will be allocated to Community-Based Abstinence Education programs in the 2006 fiscal year. These programs stress abstinence as the only way to prevent unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and do not provide information about birth control methods, except to stress their failure rates.

Abstinence-only education has spilled into international funding, as well. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which grants funding to 15 countries that have been affected by HIV/AIDS, requires grantees to allocate at least 33 percent of their prevention spending to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.

What's New?

The new ACF guidelines require programs receiving funds to teach that abstinence before marriage guarantees a happier life, complete with greater wealth, healthy children, longevity, freedom from psychological problems, and better educational opportunities. The guidelines fail to provide evidence to support this guarantee.

The ACF also now requires that programs receiving funds define abstinence in the strictest terms: "voluntarily choosing not to engage in sexual activity until marriage." Sexual activity is defined as "any type of genital contact or sexual stimulation between two persons including, but not limited to, sexual intercourse." Suggestions for staying abstinent include avoiding television and not staying out late.

Marriage is defined as "a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and wife." This implies that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) teens have no choice but to embrace a lifetime of abstinence. Sexually active teens are also marginalized, as the ACF associates depression and suicide with premarital sex -- again providing no evidence to back up its claim.

Instead of funding effective, medically accurate sex education programs, which address both abstinence and birth control, the ACF has continued to fund programs that forbid discussion of safer sex and contraception. And with these new guidelines, programs that receive funding must now sign a statement promising not to provide information about contraception, even if they want to do so with non-government funds. (Signing this statement used to be voluntary.)

The Facts About Abstinence-Only Programs

From its inception, the abstinence-only education initiative has promoted a biased moralistic agenda instead of a public health agenda, withholding vital information and promoting misinformation. Abstinence-only programs prohibit information on contraception services, sexual identity, and human sexuality -- leading to censorship within the public school system.

Abstinence-only funding has also often crossed the constitutional line separating church and state. Many abstinence-only federal grants have gone to religious organizations, with instructions that they are not to spend any of the money for religious purposes. But making sure these instructions are followed is difficult, if not impossible.

Amy Bryant is a New York City writer.

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