U.S. Teens Lose in Obama Administration’s Sex Education Agenda

Rachel Sheffield / November 02, 2010

Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the winners of $110 million worth of grant money for sex education programs for adolescents. The money will go to fund five-year cooperative agreements as part of the Obama Administration’s new Teen Pregnancy Prevention program.

However, while HHS stated that they “were hoping for and hopefully got a healthy mix” of programs, according to The Washington Post, “Abstinence proponents … identified just five ‘authentic’ abstinence programs receiving less than $5 million.” In total, 115 programs in 38 states received grants.

Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association stated, “Today’s funding announcement demonstrates a disturbing imbalance in a process touted to be open to abstinence education programs.”

Unfortunately, an imbalance in funding is nothing new. Over the years, spending on teen pregnancy prevention programs has drastically outweighed funding for abstinence education. Even during the Bush Administration, when 169 abstinence programs received grant money, spending on programs to promote “safe sex” still outpaced funding for abstinence education by a ratio of four to one. And now these abstinence programs will be losing their funding. (more…)