Proposed amendment to welfare-reform bill would favor condom-based sex-ed programs.
An abstinence-only education grant is in danger of being watered down in the Senate Finance Committee, but pro-abstinence groups are vowing that the fight to protect children will continue no matter what happens.
The concern centers around Title V, part of the 1996 welfare reform act. It stipulates that $50 million be set aside annually for education programs that exclusively teach and promote premarital abstinence. But an amendment to change what constitutes abstinence-only education is being offered by Sen. Max Baucus, R-Mont.
That amendment would, according to Abstinence Clearinghouse President Leslee Unruh, "kill abstinence until marriage."
Brigitte Maher of the Family Research Council said the money set aside for teaching abstinence is a pittance compared to what so-called comprehensive sex-education programs get.
"Contraception sex-ed programs in 2002 got $1.73 billion, so of course that's going to be higher now," she said. "These programs are vastly over funded."
That's especially true, she added, when you consider that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
"This is where we should be putting our money," she said. "We need be funding programs that teach young people to save themselves for marriage."
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