Dan Richey remembers a time not so long ago when abstinence was seen as hopelessly unrealistic, an old-fashioned value with no place in modern sex education.
“No civic groups would invite you over to give a speech about it, no TV stations would devote newscasts to it, no newspaper reporters would call you to discuss it.
“But now,” Richey recently said via cell phone as he drove to a television interview, “everyone is talking about abstinence.”
The wait-until-marriage movement has broken out of its religious sanctuary. It has happened not just in Louisiana, where Richey heads an abstinence-only program launched by the governor, but nationwide — thanks in large part to a six-year flow of federal money for abstinence-only programs.
But there also has been a shift in tone and strategy, downplaying the religious concept of chastity while hammering home the message that there is no such thing as “safe sex.” In short, the case for abstinence has become more factual than spiritual, more medical than moral.
“We say, ‘This is for your health,’ ” said Dr. Patricia Sulak of Temple, Texas, a gynecologist and medical school professor who helped develop an abstinence program for her son’s school and can’t keep up with speaking requests. “We’re not talking morals. We’re not talking religion. We’re not talking ethics.
“What the abstinence movement needed was some help from the health care profession.”
President Bush wants to help by boosting abstinence-only funding by $33 million annually, to $135 million a year. The House approved that request on May 16 as part of a package that reauthorizes the landmark 1996 legislation reforming welfare. But the Senate appears more skeptical of relying solely on abstinence to reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
On June 26, a Senate committee approved “abstinence-first” legislation that would fund pro-abstinence programs, but also provide money to teach contraception. There is some pressure to take action before the 1996 welfare reform law expires on Sept. 30.
While quibbling over whether abstinence should be the only promoted approach, or merely the first, may appear silly to some, funding stipulations are critical to the pro-abstinence movement, especially as many states grapple with budget shortfalls and are desperate for dollars from Washington.
“Not until there was (federal) funding was the movement legitimized,” said LeAnna Benn of Teen-Aid Inc., a nonprofit group that produces abstinence curricula. “Then you began to see it spread across the country.” That medical and family planning groups have stopped dismissing abstinence is evident in the many programs promoting birth control that advertise themselves as “abstinence plus” or “abstinence first.”
But the American Medical Association, Planned Parenthood and others say the pendulum has swung too far when government funding requires an “abstinence only” message, and when abstinence programs scare young people away from using birth control.
Abstinence advocates counter that promoting abstinence while teaching birth control is counterproductive.
“I don’t want to tell kids, ‘Don’t have sex,’ then spend two hours instructing them how to correctly put on a condom,” said Sulak. “That’s a mixed, confusing message.”
Research shows that while properly used condoms protect against HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS, they do not prevent some sexually transmitted diseases, such as the human papilloma virus that causes cervical cancer.
In Louisiana, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit May 9 alleging that the state’s abstinence program unlawfully provided federal money to groups promoting Christianity. The lawsuit cites one program’s report that “God desires sexual purity as a way of life” and another mentioning “Bible-based reasons for abstinence.” Richey, who counts on Louisiana getting $1.6 million a year in federal abstinence funding, called the ACLU lawsuit a “publicity stunt” timed to coincide with Congress’ reauthorization of funding. “Have some of our contractors said something about religion? Probably. We’ve had 100 contractors and 1,000 volunteers working with our program and those who brought it up aren’t on our contract list anymore. “We had 10,000 students in our abstinence curriculum and they heard a message that their actions do have consequences.”
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