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WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), Vice Chair of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over health care policy, sent a letter today along with 76 key lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), who coordinated the letter, to House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey requesting that funding for failed abstinence-only sexual education programs be left out of this year’s Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Bill.

“The mountain of evidence illustrating the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education should be enough to persuade anyone,” said U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, Vice Chair of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over health care policy. “While the Bush Administration continues to slash key health care programs because they are not demonstrating effectiveness, they insist on funding this program which has failed as evidenced by a 10-year study commissioned by the Bush Administration itself.”
 
“Our tax dollars should be used to fund programs that benefit the public good, not on unsuccessful, often counter-productive, ideologically-driven boondoggles,” said Rep. Jim Moran.  “Recent studies have shown abstinence-only programs are not working – in some cases even leading to higher levels of sexual activity. We know comprehensive sex ed is effective; it has a proven track record.  Federal funding should be going to programs that work, not those shown to be failing our youth.”  

The letter, signed by 76 lawmakers, requests that the Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) program in the FY '09 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Bill go unfunded this year.

More than $1 billion has been spent on “abstinence-only” programs in the last decade and annual funding for these programs now stands at an all-time high of $176 million.  The CBAE account alone has grown from $20 million appropriated in FY ’01 to $113 million appropriated for the current fiscal year. 

Yet, despite this record level of funding, in April 2007, the independent research firm Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. released a study – commissioned by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – which concluded that students in “abstinence-only” programs were no more likely to abstain from sex, delay initiation of sex, or have fewer sexual partners than students who did not participate. 

Since that report was issued, 13 states have evaluated their federally funded “abstinence-only” programs and not a single one found positive, long-term impact.  In fact, in some cases young people who participated in the programs actually increased their sexual activity.  As a result of these and other evaluations, 17 states have rejected federal “abstinence-only” funding, including Colorado.