Monday, December 06, 2004

Faith-based sex ed

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has released a
report on federally funded abstinence-only education programs.

The Heritage Foundation counters that "Waxman’s report, released this week, is riddled with errors and inaccuracies about the effectiveness of abstinence education and the risks associated with early sexual activity."

Not surprisingly, Planned Parenthood
offers a different viewpoint.

This 2002 Washington Monthly article offers some background on the whole topic.
"For 30 years, sex education has been at the center of the culture wars, with liberals struggling to safeguard services that teach teens about contraception against conservatives' efforts to eliminate federal support for them. But since 1996, conservatives have adopted a new strategy: Instead of simply attacking initiatives they oppose (which, incidentally, are often administered by liberals), they have begun winning federal funding for their own alternative programs. With the administration's blessing, conservatives are breeding a new kind of federal pork geared entirely to their kindred spirits. Though it flies in the face of small-government ideology, nourishing the nascent abstinence movement with federal funds marks an important shift in GOP strategy to court its restless social-conservative base."