Throughout October 2009, young people and their allies are engaging in advocacy efforts in communities across the country to raise awareness for the need for REAL sex education. The Sex Ed Month of Action will engage young people and their allies across the United States in showing their support for comprehensive sex education.
A survey out of the British Office of National Statistics last week indicated that, for the first time since tracking began, as many women in the U.K. were using condoms as a birth control method as were using the birth control pill. As I searched through the research and news articles to try and figure out what was making condoms more popular in the U.K., I found myself being a little jealous.
I realize that it may be unfair to compare two countries’ birth control usage statistics. There are myriad societal and cultural factors (different health care delivery systems to use but one example), that affect individual choices of contraception. Still, in the United States about 30 percent of the women who use contraception choose the pill and only about 18 percent choose condoms with their partner. So not only did I start to wonder what is making the condom more popular there but also what is inhibiting its popularity here.
Part of the problem is obvious. The condom has always been a favorite target of the right wing. Its members constantly deride the effectiveness of this method and point to lessons about the proper way to use condoms as proof that comprehensive sexuality education programs go too far. My best guess as to why they hate condoms so much is that besides abstinence, this is the only method of birth control that also offers protection against HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). It allows people to have sex while greatly, greatly reducing the risk of negative consequences and, because the Right has a worldview that is based around consequences, it must be very upsetting.
Those who have followed the evolution of messaging around sexuality education over the last twenty years know that the Right has labeled anything other than abstinence education as “condom programs.” In response, so as not to be pigeonholed as “the condom people,” I think that we have moved too far away from our staunch promotion of the male condom (not to mention the female condom, which is not as widely accessible but as effective as male condoms in preventing both STDs, including HIV/AIDS, and pregnancy). We are, and should be, unabashedly pro-condom.
Unfortunately, in many situations, we discuss these as if they are just another option in the contraceptive arsenal. Frankly, this isn’t good enough. Condoms deserve to be talked about in a totally different breath from other contraceptive methods because they are simply the best weapon we have against so many of the sexual health challenges we face here in the United States and across the globe.
Condoms are affordable, easy to use with the proper instruction, and extraordinarily effective in preventing both STDs, including HIV, and pregnancy if used consistently and correctly. It is terrifying to think where the HIV epidemic would be in the United States (not to mention the global pandemic) were it not for the condom. I am convinced that our best hope in this battle is to get the millions upon millions of necessary condoms into the hands of people who desperately need them to protect themselves. This is especially true in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Zambia, where AIDS has driven life expectancy down into the mid-30s.
I am not naïve enough to think that condoms are the answer to all our problems, but they certainly give us the most “bang for the buck,” if you can pardon the expression, when it comes to prevention.
Because change starts at home, we must continue to emphasize the efficiency and effectiveness of condoms in our sex education programs. We have an opportunity to do so right now as Congress is on track to eliminate funding for all existing abstinence-only-until-marriage programs – programs that have historically deliberately undermined young people’s faith in condoms. Both the House and the Senate are working on funding for more comprehensive programs. I’m concerned, however, because there is the possibility that this funding focuses exclusively on teen pregnancy prevention. While this is a noble and important goal it is not enough and I fear it will not place sufficient emphasis on the unique importance of condoms (after all, there are other ways for sexually active teens to prevent pregnancy but these would leave them vulnerable to STDs).
Let’s not miss this opportunity to remind ourselves, the world, and yes, the Right, that we are and ought to be pro-condom. Congress needs to enact a broad initiative that addresses unintended teen pregnancy, as well as STD and HIV prevention. This will provide our young people with a more holistic, comprehensive approach to their sexual health, and it will give us the opportunity to further promote that sometimes misunderstood hero in the war for sexual health – the condom.
]]>It now appears that some conservative members of Congress are gearing up to abuse this power in order to deprive D.C.’s citizens of the right to have their duly elected officials expand civil rights and liberties in D.C. That’s right; the same Representatives who claim to support “states’ rights” are now planning to use the heavy hand of the federal government to interfere in local affairs.
This approach reveals the true nature of modern hate-based conservatism – conservatives simply believe that power should lie with the states when they states are going to limit gay rights, but the power should lie with the federal government if the states are planning to expand gay rights. This only makes sense when you realize that the conservative claim of standing for “states’ rights” is, and always has been, nothing more than a pretense that allows them to couch their hateful ideologies in less offensive terminology. It was true nearly 30 years ago, when Ronald Reagan gave a wink and a nod to the hate-filled core of his party by saying he supported “states’ rights” during his first post-convention speech outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi, where 3 civil rights workers infamously were murdered in 1964, as it is today. The movement that Reagan built was only concerned with the rights of the rich, the white, and the straight and, apparently, nothing has changed.
Furthermore, we here at SIECUS, which has an office here in D.C., have a special concern for our countless co-workers, friends, colleagues and partners, gay and straight, who live in the District and will be directly affected if Congress should decide to override the City Council’s vote. It is a shame that the fate of a bill of such magnitude and consequence rests in the hands of out-of-town legislators who are ill-equipped to decide what is best for D.C. It’s time that we all stand up, in the District and across the nation, not for states’ rights, but for human rights.
]]>This is the same story of intentional deception, misinformation, and downright lying that we have seen from the far right over and over again since the beginning of the Bush administration. Whether we're talking about health care reform, a political candidate, or sexuality education, opponents to progressive reform continually use the same strategy. Instead of initiating an honest debate over policy and issues, members of the extreme right wing point to one person, one group, or one set of beliefs and yell "don't trust them."
Today, it's Conservatives for Patients Rights, supposedly a simple group of concerned citizens who want to warn you that you can't trust Congress to reform healthcare and you can't trust some bureaucrat to make your healthcare decisions for you. Last year, the trustbusters were Parents for Truth, a group of average moms and dads who were outraged by what comprehensive sexuality education "really" wanted to teach their children. And who can forget the group of Vietnam Veterans who came together as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to warn the American public about Senator John Kerry?
Unsurprisingly, all of these campaigns have something in common: Creative Response Concepts (CRC) Public Relations. CRC, headed by a former senior aid to Pat Buchanan, is spearheading the anti-health care reform crusade, was the group behind the "swiftboating" of Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign, and was hired by the National Abstinence Education Association last year to manage its Parents For Truth campaign.
A closer look at the advertisements and videos produced by these groups while working with CRC reveal that attacks on the trustworthiness of a person or institution are the common and most powerful thread. In the opening vignette on the Parents for Truth website, a mother listens is shock as a concerned teacher explains the true content of the sex education class taught in school that day. Both are horrified by the "graphic details" about sex that are included in the program with the teacher at one point saying she was embarrassed to even talk about it. According to the women, the school promised the class would be focus on abstinence with a little bit of information about contraception, but, the teacher assures her friend, abstinence was barely even mentioned. This isn't what "they" promised, thus, the teacher and mother conclude, "they can't be trusted."
If you watch the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, you'll notice that most of them end with some variation of, "We couldn't trust John Kerry then. How could we possibly trust him now?" In many of the ads, words and phrases like "BETRAYED HIS COUNTRY" or "TRUST?" appear over a black and white image of Kerry.
As much as I hate to admit it, this tactic is ingenious. By preemptively turning any public policy matter into a question about trust and honesty, not only do these right-wing groups avoid any serious policy debate, they also damage their victims' credibility early in the campaign, thereby seriously hindering their opponent's ability to respond. After all, who would ever listen to John Kerry try set the record straight? Didn't you see the grainy black and white photo of him on the TV? He's a LIAR! After this fundamental shift in trust, the damage is done and it may be too late to get back in the game.
Fighting for health care reform, this is where we find ourselves once again: trying to get back in the game. The failure of comprehensive healthcare reform is, by no means, a fait accompli, but it should be clear to everyone that negative messages targeting the credibility and motivations of those favoring reform have, to some degree, already worked. They have affected the process enough that, at the very least, we will see these same strategies again in the future.
We in the reproductive health and rights world must prepare ourselves for these same tactics to be used against us. SIECUS, like many other organizations, has a "rapid response" initiative designed to counter attacks just like these, and while I believe this is vitally important, I also recognize that to effectively defend our positions, we can't wait until we've been put on the defensive.
Collectively, we have to evaluate the upcoming threats, slanders, and misinformation that our opponents are going to use to against us and preemptively counter it with our own truth telling. That starts with exposing the financial and organizational ties of our opponents so that the public can make a more accurate assessment of who is right on the issues.
If we can succeed, even to a moderate degree, in mitigating the damage caused by the character- and credibility-based attacks from groups like CRC, we may be able to break the cycle so that the next time, when we're working on something important to us, the big story will be somewhere else.
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As you've probably heard Wednesday
was National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, and to kick off the day
the Candie's Foundation sent its new teen ambassador, Bristol Palin,
to make the rounds of the morning shows and the New York press scene.
The Candie's Foundation's mission is "to educate America's youth about the devastating consequences of teen pregnancy through celebrity PSA campaigns and initiatives."
Americans couldn't get enough of Vice Presidential-nominee Sarah Palin and her brood during the presidential campaign, especially pregnant teenager Bristol and her then-fiancé, Levi Johnston. So, the foundation's choice of a spokesperson was a brilliant move guaranteed to bring much-needed attention to the important issue of teen pregnancy.
Unfortunately, the message she seems to have been asked to deliver is disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst.
Since the campaign ended, Bristol has given birth to a son, Tripp, broken up with her fiancée, and appeared in an off-the-cuff interview on CNN in which she admitted that abstinence was probably unrealistic for today's teens. Though, today, she says that that sentiment was taken out of context, one has to wonder if it isn't what she still believes.
Appearing poised and put together,
Bristol's first live interview was with Good Morning America's
Chris Cuomo. Much of the interview focused on the difficulties
of being a teen mother from the fear of disappointing your parents to
the 24/7 grind of sleepless nights and washing bottles. Here,
Bristol did a good job of conveying the fact that teen parenting is
difficult and that even with the help, parental support, and national
attention she has gotten, it's a life-changing experience and she
wishes she had waited to become a mother.
When asked about how to prevent teen pregnancy, however, she spouted a strict abstinence message: "abstinence is the only way that you can effectively, 100%, fool proof way to prevent pregnancy." Though probably a little bungled, this is clearly a talking point she was given during her media training to become the foundation's ambassador. This became even more clear when, pushed by Chris Cuomo about safe sex, she simply repeated her abstinence message: "I'm saying that there is one way to prevent it and that's not having sex."
Bristol went from there to the Today Show's couch where she sat down with Matt Lauer, her father, and a peacefully sleeping Tripp. Again, much of the interview focused on the difficulties of teen motherhood, and, again, she was well-spoken and conveyed the message that this is not an easy life path. When this interview veered toward prevention messages, Bristol seemed a little more open to other options. Specifically, when asked if there was room for the concept of safe sex she said: "if you're going to have sex you should have safe sex" before once again repeating that "abstinence is the only 100% fool proof way of preventing teen pregnancy."
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One has to wonder about the conversations between Bristol and her media coaches on the way across town. Did she ask to be able to speak her mind? Did they acknowledge that a teen pregnancy prevention message does not have to, and, in fact, should not, exclusively focus on abstinence? We will probably never know.
What we do know is this: both Bristol and the Candie's Foundation have an excellent opportunity to draw attention to the 750,000 teen pregnancies that occur in this country each year (a statistic that both Chris Cuomo and Matt Lauer used as an introduction to their pieces and millions of morning viewers now know). And, they should use this opportunity to promote accurate information and a balanced approach to prevention. Abstinence, when used consistently and correctly, is 100% effective in preventing pregnancy. But it clearly isn't "foolproof" and it is not the "only way."
Let's hope that instead of being so rigid in their messaging, they use this terrific platform to tell young people (and their parents) that it is important to delay sexual activity and to use a reliable method of contraception (consistently and correctly) as soon as they do become sexually active.
]]>Having worked for years and years in the field of sexual heath and reproductive rights, I have gotten used to the tactics used by Ms. Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, and Mr. Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. They have worked tirelessly to undermine the most basic rights of Americans with a combination of misleading facts and outright deception. But, I have to admit, even I was surprised to hear the latest coming out of their mouths.
"Some people think that
declaring a state of emergency about the flu was a political thing to
push the Sebelius nomination through," Ms. Wright told the Washington
Independent. Mr. Perkins echoed her view in an e-mail to supporters
saying, "[L]iberals are already scheming how they can use the health
scare to win the confirmation of pro-abortion extremist Gov. Kathleen
Sebelius (D-Kans.) as Secretary of Health and Human Services."
That's right. Wendy Wright and Tony Perkins believe that the Obama administration, perhaps as the result of liberal scheming, concocted this whole swine-flu pandemic in an effort to win the nomination of Secretary for Health and Human Services candidate Kathleen Sebelius. This outrageous claim, which is on the level with those who think the moon landing was faked, should be immediately shuffled into the trash bin, and no one should give it a moment's further thought. It does, however, raise serious questions about whether Ms. Wright and Mr. Perkins have futures as any kind of serious advocates.
One of two things is going on here. The first possibility is that these two leaders of prominent, extreme, right-wing organizations have become completely divorced from reality. This should be as troubling to their opponents, who may find ourselves no longer dealing with rational people with whom we may have reasonable debates, as to their supporters, who may find themselves without a reliable captain at the helm.
But let's give them the benefit
of the doubt and say that they still have their wits about them.
The second (and perhaps more insidious) option, is that Ms. Wright and
Mr. Perkins will simply say or do anything that they think will help
them get attention. When faced with the fact that a qualified,
popular governor was about to be confirmed as HHS Secretary, they didn't
express their disappointment in the pick and pledge or promote their
policies as best they can while facing, perhaps, a hostile administration,
a situation we, as sexual health and reproductive rights advocates,
are all too familiar with. Instead, they tried to sell a conspiracy
theory so that their supporters have someone or something to blame.
Either way, the result is the same. People who will believe anything, say anything, or do anything to achieve their goals have no credibility and no role to play in serious discussions about the future of our country. If Mr. Perkins and Ms. Wright want to join the ranks of Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh to heckle and rabble rouse from the crowd, that's their prerogative. However, policy makers, advocates, educators, parents, and teachers should all realize that, as soon as Ms. Wright and Mr. Perkins entered this fantasy land, they have forfeited their credibility and any claim they once had to being part of the debate.
]]>As President of SIECUS, I am thrilled that we now have a President-Elect who understands and supports comprehensive, age-appropriate, sexuality education; who supports a woman's right to make her own reproductive health decisions; who values the availability of medically accurate information about sexual and reproductive health; and who embraces the virtues of putting science ahead of ideological goals when combating AIDS worldwide.
It was also heartening to watch as voters in a number of states voted overwhelmingly against restrictions on a woman's right to choose. In California, Proposition 4, which would have required parental notification before a minor could obtain an abortion, failed by 52% to 48%. In South Dakota, Initiative 11, which would have heavily restricted abortion, failed 55% to 45%. And, probably the most stunning and decisive vote took place in Colorado, where Amendment 48, Human Life from Moment of Conception, was overwhelming defeated 73% to 27%.
With these votes in, the future seems filled with promise. We hope that the issues we care deeply about will now finally be addressed and we can truly create a sexually healthy society. Unfortunately, when all the votes were counted it became clear that we still have a long way to go.
On a night in which this country took a giant step forward on racial issues and reproductive rights, we also took a devastating step backwards when it comes to the rights of gay and lesbian individuals. Three states voted down gay marriage proposals and another eliminated the right to adopt a child for any couple that is not heterosexual and married.
Perhaps the most surprising is the passage of Proposition 8 (by a 52% to 48% margin) in California, of all places. Is this the same California that has always been the leader when it has come to gay and lesbian issues? Is this the same California that only five months earlier challenged the Supreme Court and won the right for gays to marry?
One issue impacting the outcome was clearly a lack of organization in the effort to defeat Prop 8. Maybe there was a sense that this issue was over in California and there could be no way that this measure would pass. After all, the country has moved forward and we expect what is right and just to be the rule, not the exception. Maybe in this historic year, and with the progress that was made in Connecticut and Massachusetts, we just thought that we didn't need to work that hard. Or maybe, with so much riding on this presidential election, this just got a little lost in the shuffle.
The thing is, it didn't get lost for conservatives, and not just conservatives in California. The Mormon Church pumped over 80 million dollars into California to get Proposition 8 passed, John Templeton, Jr., of the John Templeton Foundation in Philadelphia, donated one million dollars to the cause, and multitudes of other conservative and faith-based organizations around the country infused millions of dollars to run false television, radio, and print ads.
In a year of hope, it is vitally important that the progressive community remember that all of our recent victories were not achieved through hope alone. We are where we are thanks to disciplined organizing, hard work on the federal, state, and local level, and the willingness to tirelessly strive for equal rights for all people. We have seen that our efforts can be successful, but we can never take for granted that they will be. If we truly want to defeat those who would stand in the way of equal rights for gays and lesbians, we must out-work them at every turn. Through this commitment to action, I know we will ensure a brighter, more equitable future for all Americans.
]]>As we begin to formulate our plan for sexuality education in the future, we see a chasm between public health (which seeks ultimately to prevent negative health outcomes) and education (which seeks to provide knowledge, at least in part, for the sake of knowledge). This raises a larger question, is the goal of comprehensive sexuality education to reduce unintended pregnancies, STDs, and AIDS, or is it to create a generation of sexually healthy, educated young people who are equipped with decision-making and relationship skills? I believe that the bottom line on this is that we want both. We obviously want to reduce the public health risk that our children are faced with today. But we also want to make sure that our children are prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow.
The thing is, the divide is not new. I've been at SIECUS for 17 years and this is something we've been grappling with for at least that long. SIECUS has always defined comprehensive sexuality education as more than "disaster prevention" and yet we have seen over the years that it is often the public health promises that lead to change. We saw this during the beginning of AIDS epidemic which changed the debate over sex education in schools. Even opponents stopped arguing that kids shouldn't learn about sex in schools. In fact, what they did was argue that the abstinence-only-until-marriage approach was the best way to prevent AIDS, other STDs, and teen pregnancy. In reality, they went even further; they promised it would prevent teen sex.
This was a profitable argument for them--over the past fifteen years more than 1.3 billion dollars has been pumped into the ab-only movement. But it was an inaccurate and short-sighted argument. Ab-only proponents promised that teens would stop having sex-they didn't (after a decline during the years before ab-only surged, teen sexual behavior has remained steady). They promised that teens would stop getting pregnant-they didn't (the teen birth rate is going up for the first time in a decade). And, they promised that teens would stop getting STDs--they didn't (we recently learned from CDC data that 1 in 4 adolescent girls has an STD). It is the public health argument that built the abstinence-only industry and it is the public health reality that is going to end it.
So now as the pendulum of public opinion and public policy swing back toward a more comprehensive approach, the question is how we best secure the future of comprehensive sexuality education. Public health and policy people will argue that it will be much easier to convince policymakers to provide funding if we stick to the public health approach and arguments. And they will argue, in my opinion correctly, that we won't see the same fate as the abstinence-only-until-marriage industry because comprehensive programs actually can help reduce teen pregnancy and STDs. Educators will argue that if we only take a public health approach, we will really never succeed in changing the underlying factors that have put our children in the situation that they are in today. A public health response to disease and pregnancy prevention will only address the nuts and bolts of what they should know and how NOT to get pregnant and catch a STD. What it will not do is truly educate our children about their sexuality, teach them relationship and communication skills, or particularly for young women, help them address self-confidence and self-esteem which are vital to making good decisions.
I reiterate that we want to do both. We must pave the CSE road with a public health approach, and we must secure funding for targeted programs aimed at preventing teen pregnancy, STDs, and HIV, especially in communities most impacted by these issues. But we can never lose sight of the fact that in the long run this needs to be an education product if it is truly to create change. In order to reverse the harm that has been done by more than a decade of ab-only programs and raise a generation of sexually healthy young people, we need to lay the infrastructure for comprehensive school-based sexuality education that starts in kindergarten and goes through 12th grade. Now is the time to ask for it all and we cannot get sidetracked by short-term disagreements.
]]>As we prepared the reviews for our briefing today, there was a flurry of activity as we double and triple checked the quotations and examples we had pulled from the programs. Some of the examples were so outrageously incorrect or offensive that we were sure we must have read them wrong. Reading some sections of the curricula was like watching Britney Spears drive with her baby on her lap - you know what you saw, but it is so reckless that you hope you must be mistaken. Sadly, we are not.
Try this one, for example, where
RRTW likens premarital sex to drug and alcohol use and notes that
just because other people are doing it, young people should not compromise
their values: "No matter how many people accept a dumb idea, it is
still a dumb idea," the curriculum states. Two of the examples
used to illustrate this point are slavery and Hitler. That's
right; RRTW compares premarital sex, a choice that the vast majority
of Americans make, to owning slaves and exterminating human beings.
Not to be outdone, HIS compares
premarital sex to other "powerful stuff" in a photo montage that
includes pictures of a sports car, a syringe, a gun, fire, and a plane
about to slam into the World Trade Center. "If you have sex
outside of marriage," the point seems to be, "you are no better
than a mass murdering terrorist." Messages such as this, which
are extremely disturbing and offensive, serve no purpose other than
to instill feelings of fear and shame into young people, when what they
really need is guidance, support, and information.
Unfortunately, these curricula are short on information, and what is included is often misleading or blatantly wrong. "Any kind of sexual activity can spread STDs from one person to another," says HIS, which includes masturbation, a safe and risk free activity, in its definition of sexual activity. Of course, the most blatant inaccuracy comes in RRTW which after telling teens that "sexually transmitted diseases affect teenagers' dating relationships. AIDS can kill. It can kill you. It can kill your date," the curriculum goes on to say: "AIDS can be transmitted by skin-to-skin contact." That's just wrong. But in case students weren't already scared enough, RRTW asks them to name "the percentage of people who will die from AIDS." The answer: 100%. There are a lot of things wrong with this statement but let's just start with the obvious - it fails to even mention the role of HIV. Clearly, the authors of RRTW can't believe that 100% of mankind will die from AIDS.
While these quotations and examples,
by themselves, provide reason enough for any moderately competent school
system to yank these curricula from classrooms in a New York minute,
they are not the entire problem. All three of the curricula that
we recently reviewed (and the dozens more we have reviewed over the
last decade) have a clear agenda: to promote the heterosexual marriage
as the only morally acceptable life path. These curricula may be sold
as teen pregnancy and STD prevention programs (or worse sex education)
but when you really look at them you see that their goal is to promote
a conservative social agenda. Not only does this focus instantly exclude
any gay and lesbian students who happen to be in the class by telling
them they have to wait for sex until marriage, even though in almost
every state they are not allowed to marry, but it demeans both women
and men, relies on not-so-subtle religious messages, and lessens the
worth of any student who might come from a single-parent family.
Sometimes, when we talk about our
reviews of fear-based abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, we are
accused of being, well, fear-based - of picking the worst of the worst
and taking quotes out of context to support our claims. If only that
were true. We feel that the quotations we highlight are truly
representative of the content and tone of these programs, and we include
them verbatim in our reviews (spelling mistakes and all).
In our space here today, we could only give you a very brief idea of what these curricula include, but sincerely hope that you will read the full reviews or shorter summaries on our website at www.communityactionkit.org/reviews. These curricula, and many others just like them, are out there spreading fear and misinformation among young people, and the first step in fighting them is knowing exactly what they say.
Most disturbingly, all of our examples come from programs that received federal funding. Congress has been educated time and again of the profound problems with these federally funded programs and yet, they continue to fund them. We are pleased that no increases have been approved for years, but it is time for Congress to work with a new administration to end all funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage initiatives. Many of us have labored over the past decade to gather the evidence and political cover our leaders need to end this experiment and the time has come to call our policymakers on the carpet. We've done our part. Now it's their turn.
]]>This is the backward logic now employed by the extreme right wing, and its new standard bearer, Republican presidential nominee John McCain. It flies in the face of logic, overwhelming scientific evidence, and the common sense of the American people. Instead of trying to find common ground on the issue of sex education and having real, open discussions about what educational materials are age appropriate and community appropriate, the Right Wing has again launched a smear campaign. Today, the McCain campaign released a new attack ad against Sen. Barack Obama's sex education policies which was clearly designed to mislead Americans about what comprehensive sexuality education really is and how it can serve families and communities.
The foundation for a healthy life and understanding of sexuality starts with early childhood education and a discussion of the basics. And we are talking about the basics here, folks. Every child, even as young as kindergarten, has the right to a certain level of education about his/her body. Messages included for Level 1 (5 to 8 year olds) in the SIECUS Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education, include:
I am always shocked when the Right tries to make Americans afraid of statements like these -- statements that are designed to instill in young people a sense of self worth, respect for diversity, and ability to make safe decisions. The Guidelines also provide messages for children on friendship, love, parents, and values -- issues that we all care about.
So why the no-holds-barred attack from the Right on the basic American values of education and smart decision making? Because, the more you know about comprehensive sexuality education, the less afraid of it you will be. And, right now, fear is all the right wing has to offer. Sen. McCain, organizations like the National Abstinence Education Association, and other members of the abstinence-only-until-marriage industry are trying to sell the American people on their extremist view of the world by misleading, distorting, and, yes, even lying about comprehensive sexuality education and the policy makers who support it.
It is time that the American people said, "Enough."
The truth about Obama's record in the Illinois legislature is that he supported a bill that would have amended the state's sex education law by allowing more students access to age-appropriate instruction and requiring that all materials be "medically accurate." Of course students should receive instruction on all subjects that is age appropriate, and I have yet to meet anyone with the chutzpah to say they are against medically accurate information.
As this election season moves forward, the opponents of comprehensive sexuality education are going to grow more and more desperate, and their attacks are going to grow more and more vicious. It is the duty of all of us, not just as educators, parents, or policy makers, but as citizens, to move past the fear mongering and concentrate on putting the health and well being of our children before short term political gains.
]]>As recently as Fiscal Year 2003, the first year of the Profiles, we were dealing with a very different situation. Federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs had ballooned almost 100 percent since 2000 to a whopping $117 million dollars. At the same time, only one state, California, was refusing Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage funds. But the present portrait is very different. State and national partners across the country have held the line on funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and they have received the same amount of federal money for the past four years. Given two of these were Republican-led Congresses, flat funding has been no small feat and underscores the precarious future of these programs. Also, 24 other states have since joined California in refusing Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage funding. The great gains that the abstinence-only-until-marriage industry made in the late 90s and early 2000s have been, to a large degree, halted in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence and common sense.
The news is not all good, however. The amount of federal funding that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs receive each year comes in at a staggering $176 million, totaling over $1.5 billion spent since funding began in 1982. One hundred and thirteen million dollars of these annual funds are coming from federal Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) grants. While much attention is made in the news about important and systemic progress made in states refusing Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage funds, it is important to remember that it is money from CBAE grants that makes up the vast majority of federal-abstinence-only-until marriage funding, and that CBAE funds go directly to local and community organizations, without any regulation by the states. The State Profiles detail where every one of those CBAE dollars went and reviews some of the worst programs they supported.
The real victims in this situation continue to be the young people who are receiving misleading, biased, or false information through tax-payer funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, and who have missed the opportunity to receive good, comprehensive sex education. The teen birth rate is up 3 percent nationally, the first time in 15 years that we have seen any increase, and one in four teenage girls is infected with an STD. New estimates of HIV incidence are a national shame and substantiate the jettisoning of evidence-based prevention strategies in favor of the failed abstinence-only-until-marriage approach. Additionally, communities made vulnerable to poor health outcomes, including racial and ethnic minorities, continue to suffer from the highest and most disproportional rates of STDs and unintended pregnancy. Many communities and states in the South also trail the nation in vital health statistics, and it is there that the majority of federal abstinence-only dollars, nearly $85 million annually, goes. It is time that we put our resources toward solving these problems and reversing these trends, rather than continuing to throw good money after bad by supporting failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.
I hope, to this end, that the
State Profiles will continue to be a vital tool for advocates at
the local, state and national levels. Local advocates will benefit
specifically from seeing what groups and programs are receiving money
right in their own backyards, finding contact information for newspapers,
and learning what other organizations are active in their state, both
for and against comprehensive sexuality education. Advocates on
the national level will be able to draw comparisons for federal policy
makers by comparing their state to others, not only in money received,
but in youth behavior statistics and other important trends.
We find ourselves standing
at a moment of golden opportunity. Congress recently held its
first ever hearings on the effectiveness of abstinence-only-until-marriage
programs, and advocates on the state and local levels have redoubled
their efforts to bring real, comprehensive sexuality education back
into our schools. Good advocacy and efforts to change public policy
are based on sound analysis and research and we hope the State Profiles
will continue to provide this foundation as we mark tremendous progress
and together, tackle the obstacles still ahead.