WASHINGTON - Proponents of sex education classes that focus on encouraging teenagers to remain virgins until marriage are hoping that the rescue plan for the nation’s health care system will also save their programs, which are facing extinction because of a cutoff of federal funding.
The health care legislation pending in the Senate includes $50 million for programs that states could use to try to reduce pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease among adolescents by teaching them to delay when they start having sex.
Under the federal budget signed by President Obama, such programs would no longer have funds set aside for them.
“We’re optimistic,’’ said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association, which is lobbying to maintain funding for the programs. “Nothing is certain, but we’re hopeful.’’
Critics of sex education programs focused on abstinence, however, are fighting to permanently end funding, saying there is clear evidence the approach is unsuccessful. “This is a last-ditch attempt by conservatives to resuscitate a program that has been proven to be ineffective,’’ said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, an advocacy group based in Washington. “This is the failed abstinence-only model that research has shown is ineffective.’’
During President George W. Bush’s administration, abstinence programs received more than $100 million a year in direct federal funding and about $50 million in federal money funneled through the states.
