US Government Spends $200,000,000/year Failing To Teach Kids To Do Nothing
From the time it started blowing money on abstinence-only education in 1981 (under the Reagan Administration) the US Government has spent from $4,000,000 (1982) to $214,300,000 (2008) every year funding this prohibitive lesson – and it adds up quickly (moreso with Bush policy funneling more taxpayer money in and finding ways to issue grants to religious organizations).
In the last thirty years abstinence-only education has cost US taxpayers almost two billion dollars – despite a lack of supporting scientific evidence and all indications that abstinence-only education causes more harm than good…
Abstinence education came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It began with the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, which dedicated an annual $50 million in Title V abstinence-education grants. The money had to be spent on programs that teach “abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children.” When George W. Bush took office he created a new program: Community Based Abstinence Education, or CBAE, grants. While only states could take the Title V funds, CBAE grants went directly to community groups, including faith-based organizations. During the Bush administration, funding for abstinence education more than doubled, from $80 million in 2001 to $200 million in 2007, according to figures from the Congressional Budget Office.
- The Future of Abstinence
by Sarah Kliff for NewsWeek.com
2009-10-27
While it is obvious that the organization (as with any bureaucratically-established entity) has money to blow on quixotic pursuits and self-promotion, there’s a dearth of hard science to corroborate its effectiveness… so what of the research papers which the Center for Research and Evaluation on Abstinence Education cites?
Successful abstinence maintenance was only possible among those subjects who were not already sexually experienced at study enrollment. Baseline scores regarding intercourse and general life risks already evident by seventh grade suggest that urban, school-based primary prevention interventions must occur before adolescence. Early adolescence interventions need to include both abstinence and safer sex messages.
- Keeping middle school students abstinent: outcomes of a primary prevention intervention
Marilyn J Aten, Ph.D., R.N., David M Siegel, M.D. (M.P.H.), Maisha Enaharo (M.P.H.), Peggy Auinger, M.S.
2002-01-23
This “supporting evidence” contradicts the abstinence-only aim of the CBAE grants…
Currently, there are three federal programs dedicated to funding abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Each requires eligible grantees to censor critical information that teens need to make healthy and responsible life decisions.
To receive funds under any of the federal programs, grantees must offer curricula that have as their “exclusive purpose” teaching the benefits of abstinence. In addition, recipients of abstinence-only-until-marriage dollars may not advocate contraceptive use or teach contraceptive methods except to emphasize their failure rates.
- Helping Teens Make Healthy and Responsible Decisions about Sex
ACLU 2008-06-16
Because what you don’t know … can’t help you.
Let’s turn back to the CBAE site for some guidance:
Peer-Reviewed Literature Reviews and Meta-Analyses
Coming soon.
- CBAE Research Papers
2009-11-18
Shocking!
I have a suggestion for your Meta-Analyses section, CBAE (that holds for your parent organization, too – the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services): Impacts of Four Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Programs submitted April, 2007 to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by Mathematica Policy Research.
So, why not publish that paper you’ve been holding onto for the last two years?
Is it because the programs have a statistically-insignificant effect?
$200m a year…
so what?
Abstinence-only education spending accounted for approximately 0.00007% of the 2008 US federal budget.
Do the lessons of this hamfisted and nepotistic program extend beyond the programs scaring teenagers with deliberate misinformation?
I’ll bet you a purity ring that they do.
