Dear Friend,
Abstinence-only education has been proven to be ineffective at reducing teen pregnancy or halting the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, yet the federal government has still chosen to fund programs that teach abstinence instead of comprehensive sex education at the insistence of the religious right.
Thankfully, abstinence only education is on its way out, but we need your help right now to make sure it goes away.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA) recently introduced a bill, the Repealing Ineffective and Incomplete Abstinence-Only Program Funding Act, which would stop the government from funding abstinence-only programs and support comprehensive sex education.
The government has spent nearly $2 billion on abstinence grants since 1996, and it’s about time taxpayers stop paying for ineffective sex education that leaves children vulnerable and uneducated about their own bodies.
Medically accurate sex education is what’s needed if we want to fight our astoundingly high teen pregnancy and STD-transmission rates. Abstinence-only education has proven to be a failure, and we simply cannot afford to fund sex education programs that insist on an abstinence-only mindset.
Thank you for standing up for sex education that is scientifically-based.
Sincerely,
Roy Speckhardt
Executive Director