Abstinence-Only Movement Seeking Relevancy In Face Of Potential Funding Cuts, Opinion Piece States

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 22 Jun 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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Advocates of abstinence-only sex education -- "[w]ell aware that their cause is in trouble and unpopular" -- are "revamping their image to appear more mainstream," Jessica Valenti, author of "The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women" and editor of the blog Feministing, writes in an opinion piece in The Nation. She writes that "high on the list of priorities" for abstinence-only proponents is "developing a strategy for continuing to receive federal dollars." Although President Obama "has brought some measure of sanity to public health policy" by reducing funding for abstinence-only programs in his fiscal year 2010 budget proposal, "with Obama's faith-based initiative lending an ear" to abstinence-only proponents, their strategy "might just work," according to Valenti.

Valenti writes that abstinence-only proponents have launched what she terms a "virginity movement." Backers of this movement included "antifeminist think tanks," such as the Independent Women's Forum and Concerned Women for America, as well as abstinence-only groups, religious leaders and certain conservative lawmakers, Valenti says. She adds that the movement "is much more than the same old sexism; it's a targeted and well-funded backlash hellbent on rolling back women's rights using modernized notions of purity, morality and sexuality."

Valenti continues that the groups' effort includes "appropriating the language and tools of comprehensive sex education and its advocates," while also "attempting to legitimize its message by rebranding itself as science-based." For example, Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, said during a recent Capitol Hill briefing that abstinence-only "'talks about contraception'" and offers "'medically accurate information.'" In reality, "the only time abstinence-only classes will talk about contraception is when they discuss failure rates -- often exaggerating those rates or spreading misinformation about the dangers of contraception," Valenti writes.

The "good news in all of this" is that most funding for abstinence-only education would be redirected to "teen pregnancy prevention programs" under Obama's budget plan, Valenti writes. However, the "bad news" is that one-quarter of the money allocated for teen pregnancy prevention in the proposal would be available to abstinence-only programs, and "the language in the budget doesn't make room for initiatives to curb sexually transmitted infections," she continues. "So while the virginity movement re-evaluates its image and messaging, progressives have to be just as prepared to battle back with renewed energy, with any eye toward legislative and policy gains and toward assuring that these groups don't regain their cultural footing," Valenti writes.

The issue is "about a lot more than bad-faith messages about condoms and pregnancy," she writes. It is "about stopping a movement committed to the regression of women's rights, enforcing gender norms and teaching America's youth -- especially young women -- that sexuality is wrong, dirty and dangerous," according to Valenti. She concludes, "Now that there is a new administration in Washington, we need to ensure not only that we hold our leaders accountable but that we direct the national conversation about sex, gender and health" (Valenti, The Nation, 6/17).

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