In his proposed federal budget for 2017, President Obama has removed all funding for abstinence-only education, by cutting a $10 million per year grant from the Department of Health and Human Services that supports such programs, which have never been proven effective. A 2007 study by prominent sexual health researcher Douglas Kirby, which looked at the effect of sex ed on teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases concluded that “there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence, or reduces the number of sexual partners.” Despite the lack of scientific evidence, over the last 25 years Congress has spent nearly $2 billion on such “abstinence-until-marriage” programs.
Here’s a (not so very) hypothetical question: What if you had a program which had over the years been repeatedly shown to not work despite the large sums of money you’d spent on it? Would you
A) look at options for replacing the program with something with a greater chance of success?
B) eliminate the program and direct the funds to more productive? Or would you
C) double down on the program because it supports your socially conservative uber-Jesus-y agenda…and you recognize culture warriors would FREAK if you were to cut it?
This question involves Republicans and sex ed…so I suspect you can see where this is going, right? For a quarter-century, Republicans- you know, those well-meaning patriots constantly thumping their chests to broadcast their commitment to fiscal responsiblity- have sent good money chasing after bad to support abstinence-only sex education programs. The truth is that abstinence-only programs don’t work- they never have and very likely never will…because you’re trying to teach hyper-hormonal young people to suppress their emerging sexuality “because it’s the right and godly thing to do.” Teaching children to ignore a very basic component of their humanity is something most reasonable, rational people would recognize as a recipe for failure…which it absolutely is. When you’re a Republican, though, and controlling the sexuality of others is a cornerstone of your moral/ideological/theological framework, failure is inevitable…not that your arrogance and ignorance will allow you to admit to that truth.
If you’ve ever been guilty of thinking with the wrong head, you know that the belief in the efficacy of abstinence-only sex ed is ludicrous. Imagine trying to teach perpetually horny teens the wisdom and moral rectitude of abstinence as the ONLY means of dealing with their often overpowering, impossible to ignore sexual urges. Were we not teenagers once? Have we forgotten what coming to grips with our emerging sexuality felt like? Or are we so committed to our narrow morality/ideology/theology that we’ve chose ignore our on experiences.
Finally we have a President willing to recognize that doing the right and fiscally sound thing means pissing off the American Taliban’s culture warriors. Sometimes, reality isn’t kind to those whose fear of sexuality revolves around the need to ensure that no one is getting any if they’re not…and you can bet they aren’t.
Then again, the people who will probably be most upset are the ones who profit most off pushing abstinence-only programs- like Bristol Palin, f’rinstance. Caribou Barbie’s daughter has made somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million dollars by preaching abstinence-only…even as she’s given birth to not one, but TWO children out of wedlock. Never let it be said that lack of self-awareness and/or a surfeit of hypocrisy should be an impediment to cashing in. It seems to be what Conservatives do these days.
It seems that being a fiscally conservative culture warrior is an oxymoron, because you can’t force your narrow moral/ideological/theological framework on Americans without spending money. This is especially true when your base consists of socially conservative culture warriors less concerned with a program’s success than its support of their narrow, controlling agenda. It’s why Republicans believe that they and only they are fit to govern.
