Under the Bush Administration, federal support for “abstinence-only” education
programs has expanded rapidly. The federal government will spend
approximately $170 million on abstinence-only education programs in fiscal year
2005, more than twice the amount spent in fiscal year 2001. As a result,
abstinence-only education, which promotes abstinence from sexual activity
without teaching basic facts about contraception, now reaches millions of children
and adolescents each year.
At the request of Rep. Henry Waxman, this report evaluates the content of the
most popular abstinence-only curricula used by grantees of the largest federal
abstinence initiative, SPRANS (Special Programs of Regional and National
Significance Community-Based Abstinence Education). Through SPRANS, the
Department of Health and Human Services provides grants to community
organizations that teach abstinence-only curricula to youth. The curricula used in
SPRANS and other federally funded programs are not reviewed for accuracy by
the federal government.
The report finds that over 80% of the abstinence-only curricula, used by over two-thirds
of SPRANS grantees in 2003, contain false, misleading, or distorted
information about reproductive health.