[CSPS] Abstinence-only education

[David Nelson]

Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 2, 2004; Page A01

Many American youngsters participating in federally funded 
abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years 
that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male 
teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, 
and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a 
congressional staff analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the "false, misleading, or 
distorted information" in the programs' teaching materials, said the 
analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than 
a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually 
transmitted disease.

"I don't think we ought to lie to our children about science," said 
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), left, who led the congressional staff 
analysis.

In providing nearly $170 million next year to fund groups that teach 
abstinence only, the Bush administration, with backing from the 
Republican Congress, is investing heavily in a just-say-no strategy for 
teenagers and sex. But youngsters taking the courses frequently receive 
medically inaccurate or misleading information, often in direct 
contradiction to the findings of government scientists, said the 
report, by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a critic of the 
administration who has long argued for comprehensive sex education.

Several million children ages 9 to 18 have participated in the more 
than 100 federal abstinence programs since the efforts began in 1999. 
Waxman's staff reviewed the 13 most commonly used curricula -- those 
used by at least five programs apiece.

The report concluded that two of the curricula were accurate but the 11 
others, used by 69 organizations in 25 states, contain unproved claims, 
subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive 
health, gender traits and when life begins. In some cases, Waxman said 
in an interview, the factual issues were limited to occasional 
misinterpretations of publicly available data; in others, the materials 
pervasively presented subjective opinions as scientific fact.

Among the misconceptions cited by Waxman's investigators:

• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."

• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.

• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of 
the time in heterosexual intercourse.

One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women 
who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 
percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a 
standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by 
elective abortion, the Waxman report said.

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Dave
David C. Nelson
nelsondc at earthlink.net
http://www.babymegan.org


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