New Report Exposes Dangers of Abstinence-Only Programming at Same Time Missouri Legislators File Bill to Take Science Out of Comprehensive Sex Education Law
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 1, 2004
St. Louis, MO
Carolyn Sullivan, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri, said: "It is sadly ironic that on the same day that anti-choice legislators in Missouri were busying filing a bill (HB 34) clearly designed to change Missouri's current comprehensive sex education law to an abstinence-only law, a national report highlighting the dangers of abstinence-only education was being released. Instead of continuing to teach young women and men the latest medically factual information, Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-19) would endanger the health and lives of young Missourians by requiring teachers to withold basic health facts from them about contraception and sexually transmitted diseases. Failing to educate our teenagers is not the answer to decreasing the rates of teen pregnancy or disease."
In HB 34, Rep. Davis proposes that students no longer be presented with the latest medically factual information regarding both the possible side effects and health benefits of all forms of contraception, including the success and failure rates for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.
On December 1, 2004, U.S. Representative Henry A. Waxman released the devastating report "The Content of Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Education Programs." The Waxman report highlights the dangers posed to teens by abstinence-only programs-programs the Bush administration has funded over comprehensive sex education. Abstinence-only funding skyrocketed under President Bush to approximately $170 million a year and reaches millions of our nation’s young people.
According to the report: "over 80% of the abstinence-only curricula . . . contain false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health." The report points to studies that prove that abstinence-only programs actually increase the likelihood that participants will engage in risky behaviors by providing false information such as suggestions that condom use does not prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS.
NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri has consistently fought for comprehensive, age- appropriate sex education in our classrooms. Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans support comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education.
The entire report is available at http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/
Contact: Carolyn Sullivan, Executive Director, 314.531.8616.
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