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As
other states reject program,
Texas
seeks more funds
By Laura Beil
THE
NEW YORK
TIMES
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
HALLSVILLE — When Jami Waite graduated from
high school this year in this
Northeast Texas
town, her parents sat damp-eyed in the bleachers of Bobcat
Stadium, proud in every way. Their youngest daughter was
leaving childhood an honor graduate, band member, true friend,
head cheerleader — and steadfast virgin.
"People can be abstinent, and it's not
weird," she declared.
With her face on billboards and on television, Waite has been
an emblem of sexual abstinence for Virginity Rules, which has
risen from a single operation in
Longview
to become an eight-county franchise.
For the first time, however, Virginity Rules and
700 kindred abstinence education programs are fighting serious
threats to their future. Eleven state health departments
rejected abstinence education this year, and legislatures in
Colorado
,
Washington
and
Iowa
passed laws that could kill, or at least wound, its presence
in public schools.
States have largely said that comprehensive sex
education programs, which discuss contraception beyond the
failure rates, have better scientific grounding.
Opponents got ammunition this spring, when the
most comprehensive study of abstinence education found no sign
that it delays sexual activity.
And, after enjoying a five-fold increase in their
main federal appropriations, in June the abstinence programs
received their first cut in financing from the Senate
appropriations committee since 2001.
But the final outcome for the financing is still
in question. About $176 million in federal support has
survived several early maneuvers in the House, and the full
House plans to debate the issue today as part of the proposed
Health and Human Services budget.
Lost in the political rancor, however, is the
fact that teenagers throughout the country are abstaining more
and, especially among older teens, are more likely to use
contraception when they do not abstain.
Although the reasons are not all understood,
government data show the trend began years before abstinence
education became the multimillion-dollar enterprise it is
today. Through a combination of less sex and more
contraception, pregnancy and birth rates among American
teenagers as a whole have been falling since about 1991.
Texas
,
however, has seen the smallest decline despite receiving
almost $17 million to promote abstinence.
No state has more to lose than
Texas
, which seeks abstinence money more eagerly than any other.
The
Longview
Wellness
Center
, which sponsors Virginity Rules, collects almost $1 million
annually in abstinence financing and serves 33 area school
districts.
Advocates of abstinence education vow to fight
because to them, it is not just a matter of sexuality or even
public health. Getting a teenager to the other side of high
school without viruses or babies is a bonus but not the real
goal. They see casual sex as toxic to future marriage, family
and even, in an oblique way, opposition to abortion.
"You have to look at why sex was
created," said Eric Love, director of the East Texas
Abstinence Program, which runs Virginity Rules. "Sex was
designed to bond two people together."
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