Abstinence-only funding (finally) set to expire--but don't applaud quite yet.

AFTER TEN LONG YEARS of federally funded abstinence-only sex education, proponents of comprehensive sexual education finally have cause to celebrate. After April's release of a study blasting the approach, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Representative John Dingell (D-MI) announced his plans to let funding for the Title V program expire, declaring abstinence-only programs "a colossal failure." And yet because Title V is just the second largest of three federally funded programs that promote abstinence-only sex education, questions loom: How in the world did our leaders allow this program to remain in place for ten years, despite absolutely no scientific support proving its effectiveness, and how much longer will they fund the other two?

A look at these programs' history shows that the government has long ignored the warnings of sexual health advocates and proponents of church-state separation. Abstinence-only programs, which were nationally instituted as part of Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reform package, have always enjoyed the support of conservatives who believe that comprehensive sex education poses a dangerous threat to teens, physically, morally, and spiritually. (And danger is the key word in most abstinence-only programs: the No Second Chance program, for example, tells teens engaging in premarital sex "to be prepared to die," presumably from AIDS or some undiscovered super-STD that manifests years down the road, as they then go on to warn: "you'll probably take your spouse and one or more of your children with you.")

Over the past decade, rather than being encouraged to make healthy and informed decisions, teens in the United States became dangerously deprived of important information about their own bodies. As the nation became the only country in the developed world to promote abstinence-only sex education programs, our rate of STDs and teen pregnancy exploded. Approximately half of all U.S. teens has sex by age eighteen, and without appropriate education, is it any surprise that, according to the Guttmacher Institute, one in four U.S. teens now suffers from an STD?

Further, these programs immediately became vehicles for religious groups to preach their sectarian messages in the public schools. In fact, problems had existed since 1983, when a group of taxpayers and clergy filed a lawsuit charging that the then-nascent Adolescent and Family Life Act (AFLA), which provided funds for abstinence-only programs, breached the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. The settlement required future grant recipients to provide medically accurate information, to respect teens' self-determination regarding birth control referrals, and to avoid teaching any specific religious content. However, when that ruling expired in 1998, the government mandated all AFLA programs to adhere to the strict abstinence-only requirements of the welfare reform act--and suddenly the lessons of the settlement were swept under the rug.

In the following decades, our leaders ignored study after study showing that abstinence-only sex education was utterly useless. The American Medical Association has spoken out against the approach for years, as have the Institute of Medicine, the Society for Adolescent Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Government Accountability Office, and countless others. The groups pushing abstinence-only sex education, meanwhile, are hardly unbiased; the roster reads like the guest list of a Liberty University commencement ceremony, including Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the Heritage Foundation, the Traditional Values Coalition, Concerned Women for America, and the Christian Medical Association (because clearly medical truths shift according to faith).

As the total funding for abstinence-only programs grew from $10 million in 1997 to $176 million this year, advocacy groups and others concerned with sexual health have fought for comprehensive sex education. With Dingell's announcement, it looks as if the United States is finally moving to join the rest of the developed world in truly educating its youth.

And yet this latest change is tempered by the fact that vast sums of money are still funding abstinence-only programs. The Associated Press reported that the largest program has gone from $20 million to $113 million in seven years and that President George W. Bush is requesting $141 million next year. And supporters of these programs have made it known they're not going down without a fight.

After the Democrats took control of Congress this year, the formation of the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) was announced. The NAEA then promptly hired Creative Response Concepts, the Washington, DC public relations firm best known for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth smear.

Even on the heels of what the Nation's blog called a "frigid winter for the abstinence-only crowd," the power and money behind this movement should not be underestimated. What's more, Democrats understand that teen sexuality is a dicey political issue, and rather than publicly issuing a decree against such programs, they instead appear to prefer to let the funding quietly run out. While this may avoid a blowout with abstinence proponents in Congress, it also indicates that legislators prefer to keep the topic of teen sexuality safely hidden from public discourse. And doing so only means that we continue to shortchange our youth.

Given the government's long history of sweeping "difficult" topics aside--from its denial of the realities faced by our troops in Iraq, to its terrible inability to acknowledge and cope with Hurricane Katrina, to its long list of incompetent political appointees, to the U.S. Attorney scandal--sexual health advocates simply cannot afford to rest on their laurels now. While Dingell's statement is certainly a victory, it remains imperative for those who care about the sexual health of our youth to speak out in favor of open and honest sexual education--and to hold our leaders accountable to ensure that we eliminate all funding of abstinence-only programs.

Heidi Bruggink, who holds a B,A. from Harvard University, formerly served as Legal Coordinator of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center.