'Abstinence Only'
Policy Puts Teens at Risk
The following op-ed
appeared in The Star Ledger on January 22, 2008.
It was written by
ACLU-NJ Executive Director Deborah Jacobs.
Thirty-five years after the Roe
vs. Wade decision, while control over women's bodies still gets hurled
around like a political football, one thing we should all rally around is
working to minimize unintended pregnancies.
Each year in the United States, nearly 750,000 teenagers 15 to 19 become
pregnant. Unintended pregnancy has a profound impact on women and girls,
imperiling their education, narrowing their future employment opportunities and
limiting their long-term earning potential.
Society pays as well. The federal government alone spends $9 billion
annually to help families that began with a teenage birth.
Sadly, many women -- especially poor women and teenagers -- still lack the basic
education and access to reproductive health care that can reduce unintended
pregnancies as well as life-threatening sexually transmitted diseases.
Yet, instead of promoting comprehensive sex education, the federal government
aggressively funds "abstinence-only until marriage" programs that fail teenagers
by withholding information they need to make healthy, mature decisions about
sex.
To receive federal funding, abstinence-only programs must have the "exclusive
purpose" of teaching the benefits of abstinence. They may not advocate
contraceptive use or teach contraceptive methods except to emphasize their
failure rates.
Thus, recipients of federal abstinence-only-until-marriage funds operate under a
gag rule that censors vitally needed information. Grantees are forced to
omit any mention of topics such as contraception, abortion and AIDS or to
present them in an incomplete and therefore inaccurate fashion.
In fiscal year 2006, the federal government lavished $3.6 million in grants on
New Jersey organizations to deliver abstinence-only programs to students and
young people. Nationwide, some $87.5 million is spent annually on
abstinence-only programs, most of it taxpayers' dollars.
At best, it is money wasted.
A recent study conducted for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by
Mathematica Policy Research, a leading sexual health researcher, found that
teens who participated in these programs were just as likely to have sex as
those who did not. Worse yet, other studies have shown that teens in some
abstinence-only programs are less inclined to use contraception once they do
have sex.
Abstinence-only programs also conflict with New Jersey's well-regarded
comprehensive core curriculum for sex education. Recognizing this, in 2006
the Corzine administration wisely declined to reapply for the portion of federal
abstinence-only funding distributed by the state. The state's letter
declining the funding pointed out that because of contradictions between the
state and the federal government approaches, New Jersey schools might need to
add class time simply to correct inaccuracies included in abstinence-only
programs.
Though more than a dozen other states have similarly rejected abstinence-only
funding, state control over this aspect of public education is strictly limited:
Most of the money goes directly from the federal government to the community
organizations that conduct the programs in schools.
Cash-strapped school systems like Newark public schools, long straining to
overcome immense educational and economic hardships, are all too willing to let
these federally funded programs into their classrooms, and it's teens who pay
the price.
With one of the highest teen pregnancy rates and lowest graduation rates in the
nation, Newark teenagers desperately need quality, comprehensive sex education
so they are as prepared as possible to make smart decisions about sexual
activity, including when to say no and when to use contraception.
Despite this, the Newark public schools allow the Several Sources Foundation
into health classes once a week to present a program called "The Choice Game," a
nine-week curriculum that never mentions condoms and that awards students a
sterling silver ring in exchange for pledging to remain abstinent until
marriage.
If the stakes weren't so high, it would be hard to take "The Choice Game"
seriously; evidently, few other New Jersey school districts do. Montclair
doesn't have the program in its schools and neither does Millburn,
Maplewood-South Orange, Elizabeth or Plainfield.
In fact, I don't know of any other New Jersey school district that is so
desperate for grant money or free "teaching" that it will subject its students
to this ineffective, insidious program that can threaten students' health and
futures.
"The Choice Game" and similar abstinence-only programs illustrate a larger point
-- namely, that the young people of Newark and elsewhere deserve the kind of
information that will help them endure, thrive and, in some cases, survive to
adulthood. They deserve equal access to objective, relevant and medically
accurate sex education.
After all, choice isn't a game.
(Emphasis added.)
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