Legal Momentum, the nation's oldest legal organization promoting women's rights, denounced June 7th's congressional committee vote to increase funding for discredited abstinence-only programs.
"Research funded by Congress has proven that abstinence-only programs are a waste of our tax dollars," declared Kathy Rodgers, President of Legal Momentum. "Worse yet, these programs actually harm our young people by making them skeptical of using condoms to protect against the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted infections," she said.
On June 7, the Labor, Health and Human Services subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee voted to increase funding for Community Based Abstinence Education by nearly 25%, to a record $141 million. This is the first increase in several years for these programs, which are prohibited by law from discussing contraception except to emphasize failure rates.
While an increasing number of states have rejected federal support for abstinence-only programs, the funding voted on yesterday goes directly from the federal government to often small and inexperienced groups, whose materials are frequently ridden with religious doctrine, inaccurate medical information, and harmful stereotypes about women and girls. Read More here.
The congressional committee vote comes just weeks after Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.-which was contracted by the federal government to study several abstinence-only programs over a four year period-reported that the programs had no impact on sexual behavior among young people. Worse yet, the study found that those taking part in abstinence-only programs were actually more likely to incorrectly believe that "condoms are never effective at preventing" sexually transmitted diseases. [link to Mathematica study €“it is in our April 17 "In the Moment" on the study results]
"Sexual ignorance hurts everyone, but girls and women bear the greatest burden with unintended pregnancy and higher biological susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections," added Rodgers. "Congress can, and must, change direction to fund programs that promote comprehensive reproductive education to ensure healthy futures for women and girls," she concluded.
