AIDS Groups Call For
End To Abstinence
Funding By Feds
by The Associated
Press from the Web, May 24, 2005
Cleveland, Ohio -- Advocates
of comprehensive sex education want Ohio to stop funding abstinence-only
programs, which urge young people to wait for sex until marriage.
Critics say there is no clear evidence that abstinence programs reduce teen
pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases, and have asked the Ohio Department
of Health to stop paying for them until there is proof they are worthwhile.
The Bush administration and the state's health department have awarded $32
million in grants to Ohio agencies for abstinence education since 2001, the
Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
"None of us think it's a good idea for 13-year-olds to be having sex," said Earl
Pike, executive director of the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland.
"That's not the question. The question is what works to reduce that."
Abstinence education programs aimed at middle- and high-school students
typically warn that condoms don't always prevent sexually transmitted diseases
and that sex outside of marriage may have harmful psychological effects.
"There are lots of programs out there for safer sex and contraceptives," said
Cheryl Biddle, executive director of Abstinence the Better Choice in Akron.
"We want to balance the scale. I'm always going to stress
abstinence-until-marriage because there is such a dearth of this kind of message
out there."
Pike said abstinence education spreads misleading or inaccurate information,
blurs religion and science, is sexist and disregards gays.
The AIDS Taskforce and 34 other agencies across Ohio are pushing the state
Health Department to reduce funding for abstinence education.
In a letter to Pike, State Health Director Nick Baird said Ohio supports a
number of health messages to reduce teen pregnancy and sexual diseases,
including abstinence education. And he noted that Ohio lawmakers mandated
in 1999 that schools emphasize abstinence in their sexual disease prevention
classes.
The Plain Dealer's review of abstinence education in Ohio found that about half
the programs receiving money for abstinence-only projects are faith-based or
groups strongly against abortion. For example, Ohio Right to Life
Foundation chapters received close to $2.2 million, the paper said.
Births among Ohio teenagers have been declining over the past 10 to 15 years,
and a student survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001
found adolescents were delaying sexual intercourse or having fewer sexual
partners than a decade earlier.
But instances of sexually transmitted disease were rising. Chlamydia cases
rose 41 percent between 1999 and 2004, while gonorrhea rates increased 21
percent during the same time period, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
HIV and syphilis have also risen.
A report by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which researches sexual and
reproductive health issues, suggests that more girls are relying on birth
control pills and the patch rather than condoms. This could explain why
teen pregnancies are down but sexual diseases are up, some experts contend.
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