President Requests $27 Million Budget Boost for Failed Abstinence-Only Programs Amidst Deep Cuts for Essential Programs
President Requests $27 Million Budget Boost for Failed Abstinence-Only Programs Amidst Deep Cuts for Essential Programs
In the context of a budget that slashes spending for essential programs, from nutrition to health care to education, the $27 million increase for failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs is dumbfounding.
Making the request even more astounding is that it follows just 32 days after the Society for Adolescent Medicine, in one of the most exhaustive reviews to date of government-funded abstinence-only programs, rejected current administration policy that promotes abstinence as the only sexual health prevention strategy for young people.
federal abstinence-only-until-marriage policy is ethically problematic, as it excludes accurate information about contraception, misinforms by overemphasizing or misstating the risks of contraception, and fails to require the use of scientifically accurate information while promoting approaches of questionable value....
At a time when the budget deficit is soaring, Medicare is being slashed, and essential programs for the poor and disabled are being terminated, shouldn't the President instead be cutting programs that have no proven effectiveness?
At the very least, the federal government should be in the business of providing medically accurate information to the youth of this country.
