Bye Bye Abstinence Only
Yesterday, Bristol Palin was all over the media talking about her own teen pregnancy and that prevention is best. Though she focused on abstinence, she acknowledged teens need to know about birth control.
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Today, the president’s budget (.pdf) says in clear terms that the U.S. government won’t be wasting our tax money on abstinence only ineffective sex non-education any more if he has anything to do with it. Who would have thought that conservative abstinence-only proponent Gov. Sarah Palin’s splash onto the political landscape would have helped created the impetus for this sweeping policy change? This is what makes politics so eternally fun! Here’s the relevant language from the budget-now we have to keep the pressure on Congress to follow suit:
The 2010 Budget proposes a new Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative to support community-based and faith-based efforts to reduce teen pregnancy using evidence-based and promising models. In addition, a new Strengthening Communities Fund will help build the capacity of non-profit organizations and State, Local and Tribal entities to better serve low-income and disadvantaged populations. This Budget also proposes funding for (1) a new child welfare initiative, and (2) a human services case management system for Federally-declared disasters. This Budget eliminates funding for Community-Based Abstinence Education, the mandatory Title V Abstinence Education program, the Compassion Capital Fund, and Rural Community Facilities.
GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”
As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.
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Aletha, she has given mixed messages about her beliefs, but she has taken abstinence only funds in AK and has not supported other programs that would have provided comprehensive and medically/scientifically accurate sex education.
From NPR report http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94332508 :
“Gov. Sarah Palin is among that group. In response to a questionnaire during Alaska’s gubernatorial race, Palin said, “I am opposed to explicit sex education.”
From Sam Stein http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-on-abortion-id-oppo_n_122924.html :
But it’s not just abortion policy that has Democrats up in arms over Palin. In that same 2006 questionnaire, the soon-to-be governor said she would fund abstinence-only education programs in schools. “The explicit sex-ed programs,” she added, “will not find my support.” The stance, which reflected the priorities of the GOP, nevertheless led to an incredulous editorial in the Juneau Empire.
She responded (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/01/1320417.aspx) to an Eagle Forum questionnaire that was clearly designed to polarize her answer:
Q:Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?
Palin: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.
Nevertheles, she did not qualify her answer in any way to indicate she would support comprehensive programs that are not “explicit”, whatever that means. Indeed, one of the biggest problems I have with Palin is that she talks out of both sides of her mouth so often. But I think she has been pretty clear about this issue, both by her own words and deeds and by the company she keeps.
Abstinence education, or abstinence-only? I think this is the crux of the confusion. That Eagle Forum questionnaire left out the “only” part, probably deliberately. Obama supports abstinence as well, but not abstinence-only. People jumped to the conclusion that what Palin meant by explicit was contraception. I think she meant graphic. I think a great many people take the attitude of Bristol Palin, that abstinence before adulthood (if not marriage) is best, but not realistic. Gov. Palin has gone out of her way to say she supports contraception and that kids should learn about it. This is just one of many ways she upsets the fundamentalists, who still think women should stay home and take care of their children and husbands. Palin wants to have it all, a career and a family. This is anathema to fundamentalists. Heart, who knows a great deal about fundamentalists through bitter experience, wrote about their discomfort with Palin in great depth.
Sarah Palin, Woman-Blaming and Feminist Cluelessness About Conservative Christianity