Abstaining from funding

Crooks and Liars:

James Dobson’s Focus on the Family issued an alert to its membership yesterday with a banner headline: “Liberals Want Federal Abstinence Education Cut.” To which I thought, “It’s about time.”

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I was especially struck by the notion that the timing of the CDC report was somehow helpful to the right’s efforts to promote abstinence-only funding. If anything, the opposite is true — as the rates of sexually-transmitted diseases go up, it’s all the more important to offer quality education on sexual health.

It’s quite simple: the evidence that abstinence-only is more effective doesn’t exist.

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Thus far, it appears conservative groups have missed the memo. For that matter, as I understand it, House Republicans and Bush administration officials are prepared to fight to keep the funding for ineffective programs in place.

One wonders just how many more studies it will take.