FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK--Saying that young people need honest and accurate information to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS, a new advertisement by the American Civil Liberties Union and Advocates for Youth tells Congress to stop preventing teens from getting the facts about sex.
""When it comes to sex ed, honesty is still the best policy,"" the advertisement (attached to this document) declares in bold type. A black-and-white photo depicts a 1950s-era teacher pointing to a blackboard of familiar sayings edited to read, ""Ignorance is the best policy,"" ""Knowledge is bad,"" and ""Never be prepared."" Below, the advertisement asks: ""Why are politicians rewriting some of life's most important lessons?""
The advertisement, which appears in the September 3, 4, and 5 issues of Congressional Quarterly's Daily Monitor, highlights problems of existing abstinence-only programs and the President's current efforts to increase funding for these misguided programs by a half-billion dollars.
""While the ACLU believes that abstinence is a critical part of any educational program about human sexuality, abstinence-only programs raise serious health concerns for our nation's teens,"" said Louise Melling, Associate Director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project.
""It is high time for Congress to get real about these concerns and provide teens with the information they need to protect themselves and to make responsible choices if they become sexually active,"" she added.
Programs that receive federal abstinence-only dollars are barred from advocating contraceptive use or teaching contraceptive methods except to emphasize their failure rates. These restrictions exist despite statistics that demonstrate a high level of sexual activity and risk-taking among U.S. teens.
According to the ACLU, Congress has already allocated well over a half-billion dollars since 1997 for educational programs that focus exclusively on abstinence and censor other information that can help young people make responsible, healthy, and safe decisions about sexual activity. President Bush is now asking Congress to increase funding for these programs by $33 million a year, even though, as the advertisement notes, the government's own study found no evidence that these programs work.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed legislation reauthorizing funding for abstinence-only programs funded under the welfare reform legislation of 1996 and the Senate is expected to vote on similar legislation this fall. If enacted, this legislation would continue to block the transmission of vital life-saving information to our nation's teens. Both houses of Congress are also expected to vote on legislation that would appropriate money for abstinence-only education through two other federal programs.
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that an overwhelming majority of parents and students want high schools to teach information about both abstinence and contraception. In fact, studies show that the vast majority of parents, teachers and leading medical groups in the United States believe that students should receive comprehensive sexuality education.
In addition to health concerns, abstinence-only programs present constitutional problems, the ACLU noted. For example, some programs misuse federal taxpayer dollars to preach religious messages. This past July, in a case brought by the ACLU, a federal district court ordered Louisiana officials to stop funding religious activities in its Governor's Program on Abstinence. The program, which runs on federal and state dollars, has regularly funded abstinence-only programs that, among other things, feature religion-based curricula and activities and minister to teens about the ""scriptural, spiritual, and practical foundation for combating the issues of premarital sex.""
The case, ACLU of Louisiana v. Foster, is the first challenge brought against a program funded through the federal abstinence-only money made available in the 1996 federal welfare reform legislation. More information on that case is online at /node/11303.
For more information on the issue, see the ACLU Fact Sheet: Abstinence-Only Education Censors Vital Health Care Information, Jeopardizing the Health of Teens, online at http://archive.aclu.org/issues/reproduct/abst_only.html.