Government Spent $1 Billion Against... Sex?

Let's scare children away from doing something that is perfectly nature and actually quite a bit of fun if I do say so myself. Yea, I'm a sinner.

At least it has the support of the people, right?

Agreed.

But, I like that one!

So the government thinks I should just say no? Haha.

Every once in awhile in my internet browsing I find something particularly angering, and to be honest it usually involves the government. The upset today comes from Wikipedia, specifically the article on Abstinenc e-only sex education. Scroll down to the Rise in the U.S. section. Read the first paragraph.

" Through direct funding and matching grant incentives, the U.S. government steered more than a billion dollars to abstinence-only education programs between 1996 and 2006."

Think about that for a second.

Over one billion dollars.

The government has stolen $1 billion+ from their citizens and used it to promote a largely religious ideal in the schools. You have not had a choice in this. What right does the government have to replace parents in the lives of children?

Oh, and it would in the least be nice if the material used in the programs was accurate; however, a report released in 2004 found many errors:

• misrepresenting the failure rates of contraceptives
• misrepresenting the effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV transmission, including the citation of a discredited 1993 study by Dr. Susan Weller, when the federal government had acknowledged it was inaccurate in 1997 and larger and more recent studies that did not have the problems of Weller's study were available
• false claims that abortion increases the risk of infertility, premature birth for subsequent pregnancies, and ectopic pregnancy
• treating stereotypes about gender roles as scientific fact
• other scientific errors, e.g. stating that "twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create this new individual" (the actual number is 23).

To me it seems like every other government program pushed through quickly not intended to actually be successful or try to be truthful. This is a clear example of governments pandering to interest groups or installing law based on their own beliefs, even though these types of government interference are against the Constitution and just plain logic.

The program doesn't even work. Many studies, such one released this year that I looked at, found that those under an abstinence-only program were no more likely to remain virgins when compared to a control group who did not follow an abstinence-only program. Regardless, the federal government still pays out the ass for these programs. In 2006, the fiscal budget for Community-Based Abstinence Education was $115 million.

If spending hundreds of millions of dollars domestically on this trash wasn't enough, Bush has brought it to the rest of the world:

President George W. Bush announced his Five-Year Global HIV/AIDS Strategy. Also known as The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the plan committed the U.S. to provide $15 billion over five years towards AIDS relief in 15 countries in Africa and the Caribbean, and in Vietnam. About 20 percent of the funding, or $3 billion over five years, was allocated for prevention. The program required that, starting in fiscal year 2006, one-third of prevention funding be earmarked specifically for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.

I'm glad you aren't coming here to Canada, because I would start taking it personally.

This really isn't more than a rant, but please. "Sex education doesn't work, a team of McMaster University researchers has found. And neither do the other methods of preventing teen pregnancies" (source). Leave it to the parents to teach their children. Teach the kids to be rational and they will act in that way. Teach them that they will get warts if they have sex just isn't logical.

Stop @!$%#ing with the future of children because your delusions of a God say premarital sex is bad.

All quotes and numbers are from the Wikipedia article in the first paragraph, unless otherwise sourced.

Back To Top