Thursday, March 26, 2009

Graham to introduce amendment to put abstinence-only sex ed funding in 2010 budget

Posted by Chris Haire on Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 7:36 AM

According to James Dobson's Focus on the Family, Lindsey Graham plans to introduce an amendment that would put funding for abstinence-only sex ed back in the federal budget.

Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, said the amendment provides the best chance at preserving the key funding.

"Title V is vital, particularly since we see not only STD (sexually transmitted disease) rates going up, but also teen-birth rates beginning to go up," she said. "More than ever, teens need to receive skills that will help them avoid those consequences by delaying sexual activity until they’re married.

"Abstinence education is the only approach that provides those skills for teens."

So, both STD and teen-birth rates are going up? Interesting. You would have thought that the $520 million spent by the Bush administration from 2001-'07 on Community-Based Abstinence Education would have brought all of that bumping and grinding to a halt. 

Maybe Lindsey knows something about abstinence that we don't.

Instead,

  |  

Comments (1)

Showing 1-1 of 1

Add a comment

According to the comment (link) this morning from a SIECUS staffer at RH Reality Check website, the Bunning / Graham amendment was defeated in committee 13-10, but will come up again on the Senate floor for a little more grandstanding. This is part of Lindsey's bag of tricks -- pontificating on social-conservative dead-horse issues to cater to Bubba, cajoling his constituents into thinking he's like minded (I'm quite sure that he's not). Apparently it doesn't cross Graham's mind that his posturing reinforces discredited, harmful notions -- like abstinence only sex education -- in South Carolina. Instead he just feeds the penchant of his SC electorate for voting against its own best interests. If we're going to continue as the public policy laughing stock of the universe, we really need someone who will consistently support that time-tested goal.

report   
Posted by Phil, West Ashley on March 31, 2009 at 6:22 AM
Subscribe to this thread:
By Email
With RSS
Showing 1-1 of 1

Add a comment

Classified Listings
{ more } Recent Comments
{ more } Reader Reviews
Most Viewed

Powered by Foundation   © Copyright 2012, Charleston City Paper   RSS