According to a news brief in The Wall Street Journal April 14, abstinence only programs were found to have little effect on teen sex habits. The Bush administration stated that the program just needs more time.
A more in depth article was also published in the Los Angeles Times April 8, by P.J. Huffstutter, stating that as many as five states, so far had rejected the government abstinence-only programs and in thus rejecting the program were denied funding my the federal government for sex education.
When is the Bush administration going to stop promoting its own religious agenda and start to focus on the needs of its people?
Abstinence only programs do not work and the president needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Teenagers have sex and there is nothing he can do about it.
Lucky for us, California never went along with the abstinence only programming, but now with other states such as Wisconsin, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Montana, New Jersey and newly pulled out state Ohio, we can hope that more of America’s youth with get the real education they need if they choose to lead a sexually active lifestyle.
According to the L.A. Times article, “in an Oct. 3 report that surveyed abstinence programs in 10 states, the Government Accountability Office concluded that such programs were not proved to work, and at times contained inaccuracies about condoms and AIDS.”
This is clearly unacceptable. We live in the most powerful country in the world, but we can’t expect a 16-year-old to know how to properly put on a condom.
We could all just place the blame on the parent for not instructing their children about the birds and the bees, but if should allow the information to be available to those people who may not be able to learn about sex in their homes.
According to the L.A. Times, from 1995 to 2002, teen pregnancy rates dropped 24 percent, according to a study by Columbia University and the Guttmacher Institute. The report, published in the American Journal of Public Health in January, attributed 14 percent of the decline to teens waiting longer to have sex and the rest to contraception.
Also in Huffstrutter’s article, it is stated that President Bush has asked Congress to carve out $191 million for the abstinence program in fiscal 2008 – an increase of $28 million over current funding.
Why not give some of that funding to young mothers and health care or even tuition cuts for us poor college students?
This just seems to be such a waste of time and taxpayers’ money to promote a program that just doesn’t seem to work.
Teenagers have been having sex since the dawn of time and the sooner we accept that, the sooner we can provide them with the necessary information to engage in safe sex.
We can never really “fix” the problem of teen pregnancy, but we can give the tools to help teenagers make better decisions, instead of just hoping that ignoring the problem will make everything OK.
With tax day happening, it’s nice to know where your money is going – down the gutter.
Brigid McGuire is a senior journalism major.
