For Immediate Release:
February 16, 2006

Contact: Adrienne Verrilli 212-819-9770 x325

New York , NY - The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a new funding announcement for Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) programs. This new announcement represents a significant departure from previous announcements for the federal abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, setting forth detailed guidelines that are not based on sound science or the reality of the lives of America 's young people.

"This new funding announcement is ACF's stealth attempt at revamping the entire program to make it even more restrictive. This funding announcement is full of wild and unfounded assertions that abstinence before marriage will cure everything from psychological disorders to criminal behavior and ensure financial success and a lifetime of happiness," said William Smith , vice president for public policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS).

The new guidelines enumerate messages that should be included in curriculum.  These messages rely on fear and shame, discourage contraceptive use, promote marriage, and ignore sexually active students, LGBTQ youth, and young people who have been or are being sexually abused.  For example:

• Teach that teen sexual activity is associated with decreased school completion, decreased education attainment, and decreased income potential.
• Teach the potential psychological effect (e.g. depression and suicide) associated with adolescent sexual activity.
• Teach that non-marital sex in teen years may reduce the probability of a stable, happy marriage as an adult.
• Teach that the expected standard for sexual activity is within the context of a mutually monogamous relationship between a man and a woman. 
• Teaches that sexual desires are natural and controllable and that individuals are capable of making choices to abstain from sexual activity

"This new program adopted by ACF is simplistic and unproven," Smith said.  "The 'Get Married' approach to health education being promoted by the federal government leaves young people without the information and skills they need and puts their lives at significant risk. We can only conclude that the Bush Administration's intention is to pump federal tax dollars into programs that share its narrow world view at the expense of the health and well-being our nation's young people," Smith continued.

In a February 16 th letter to HHS' Secretary Michael Leavitt, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) explained, "Under the new guidelines, funding for abstinence education will be awarded based on ideology, not the effectiveness of programs in reducing teen sexual activity, teen pregnancy, and teen sexually disease rates." Representative Waxman said this was a "dangerous development" and called for the entire funding announcement to be retracted.

More than $1 billion dollars in federal tax payer money has gone to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, and yet not a single, sound evaluation-including HHS' own-has determined that they work to help young people protect their health in the long term.  In fact, the opposite is true, research has shown that virginity pledges, a nearly universal component of these programs, undermine the use of condoms and contraception when young people become sexual active.  Additional evidence has also shown that youth who take virginity pledges are more likely to participate in riskier experimentation with sex.

"This announcement by HHS makes clear the gross misuse of taxpayer funds and forces all of us to question the extent to which evidenced-based prevention will survive during the remaining years of the Bush Administration," Smith said.

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To see SIECUS' full analysis of the funding announcement, go to: http://www.siecus.org/pubs/cbaereport.html

To see ACF's funding announcement, go to:  http://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/pdf/HHS-2006-ACF-ACYF-AE-0099.pdf