Tucked into a Medicare spending bill that passed the House yesterday is a provision that would extend a controversial abstinence-only education program for another year. It’s so controversial that 22 states have actually opted out of taking the funding. Two more states have said they plan to decline the funds when the new fiscal year begins in October. The AP reports:

Some $50 million has been budgeted for [the program] this year, and financially strapped states might be expected to want their share. But many have doubts that the program does much, if any good, and they’re frustrated by chronic uncertainty that it will even be kept in existence. They also have to chip in state money in order to receive the federal grants.

Abstinence-only education has taken plenty of heat. A 2007 report from the Dept. of Health and Human Services-funded, independent Mathematica Policy Research Group found that such programs had "no effect on the sexual abstinence of youth." Nonetheless, the push for such programs lives on.


In April, TWI reporter Matthew Blake covered a hearing where the House oversight committee took a look at the issue. Matt noted at the time:

The hearing showed that social conservatives continue to shape the public debate on [abstinence-only education]. Abstinence-only education, one plank of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 "Contract With America," is now a big part of the Bush administration’s public-health agenda, receiving $1.3 billion since 1997. Despite the current calls to end funding, the conservatives who framed the abstinence-only policy have created a formidable obstacle for opponents to overcome.

The Senate still needs to pass its own version of Medicare’s funding bill before we’ll know if this has a chance of making it another year.