Action Alert: Obama Cuts Abstinence Education from 2010 Budget
President Obama released his budget today in which he voiced his intention to cut abstinence education programs - both Title V and CBAE and replace them with comprehensive sex education programs.
Today's release by the administration states:
"The Budget supports State, community-based, and faith-based efforts to reduce teen pregnancy using evidence based models. The program will fund models that stress the importance of abstinence while providing medically-accurate and age-appropriate information to youth who have already become sexually active."
If these standards are objectively applied, abstinence education programs would qualify; however a respected source indicated that the administration does not expect abstinence programs to qualify for the newly proposed program. This begs the question: "Does ideology trump science-based evidence in the president's request?"
An overview of the President's proposal is outlined in this afternoon's Wall Street Journal article. NAEA is quoted in the article. Read more here. Click here to see the specific budget recommendations as they related to abstinence education. [PDF, 60KB]
What Does Today's Action Mean?
1. A Presidential budget proposal is never identical to the budget that is passed by Congress. In other words, just because the President favors an end to abstinence education does not necessarily mean that it will end.
2. The FY 2009 funds allocated for CBAE must be used as intended by Congress. HHS continuation letters for current CBAE grantees should be received very soon,indicating that Fy 2009 monies will continue funding current grantees through September 30, 2010.
What Should You Do?
1. Use new NAEA resources to let your policy makers, school board members, and stakeholders know that abstinence works:
- Visit the new NAEA website, Abstinence Works (AW), which sets the record straight on research that informs the sex education debate. (www.AbstinenceWorks.org).
- A new report, Abstinence Works 2009 identifies 40 studies that demonstrate significant behavioral impact or significant impact on factors predictive of behavior change. (This resource is available for ordering on the AW website.)
- A new study by prominent youth risk behavior researcher, Dr. Stan Weed, which places comprehensive sex education and abstinence education on a similar grid and finds that there is more behavioral impact for abstinence education. (This presentation is available on the AW website.)
2. Contact your Members of Congress today to let them know you want them to support teen sexual health by supporting abstinence education funding. Contact your House Member here. Contact your Senator here.
3. Collect stories and quotes from parents and teens as to the value of abstiennce education in their commumities. Send these to NAEA at info@naea1.org.
May 7, 2009
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