September 21, 2007
NEW YORK SEX ED IS COMPREHENSIVE-ONLY
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Comprehensive sex-ed lovers smile for the camera |
Yo, it's good news Thursday! The same day New York Civil Liberties Union issued a new report "Financing Ignorance: A Report of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Funding in New York" chronicling the dangerous funding of medically inaccurate abstinence-only education in 39 New York State programs, State Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines announced that as of October 1, state funds won't go for anything other than comprehensive sex education.
Daines' announcement followed his July move to cancel existing contracts with abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and no longer accept funds from Title V, one of the main federal funding streams for abstinence-only education.
"We're very pleased the Department of Health decided to stay away from dirty money, but we'll only be satisfied when comprehensive sex education is fully funded," NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said after a press conference Thursday to announce NYCLU's report. Organizations supporting NYCLU's proposal include Family Planning Advocates, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, Mt. Sinai Adolescent Health Center, CHAMP, Housing Works, and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). Representatives from supporting organizations spoke at Thursday's release about the different ways abstinence-only education is damaging.
Though many of New York's abstinence-only programs went to fund "abstinence-in-grant-proposal-only" activities like after-school Spanish classes, a "cyber cafe" and cosmetology courses, several programs used hard-core abstinence-only curriculum containing harmful scare tactics about sex and abortion, gender stereotypes and bias against LGBT youth.
"Abstinence-only education demonizes LGBT youth," said Miriam Yeung, director of public policy and government relations at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, noting that abstinence-until-marriage programs are a slap in the face for those who can't legally marry. "And beyond fixing marriage, it is irresponsible to have money going towards a program that is scientifically unsound."
Although advocates said that New York State has taken the right steps by finally starting to fund comprehensive sex education, there is much more to do, in particular passage of the "Healthy Teens Act," which would establish a grant program for "age-appropriate and medically accurate" sexuality education that "stresses the value of abstinence while not ignoring those adolescents who have had or who are having sexual intercourse."
And while New York made the right call on Title V and ab-only, the Democratic-controlled Congress keeps funding abstinence-only education, and has even planned to increase money for Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) grants, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that the abstinence-only-until-marriage programs it supports do not work. There's still a lot of work to be done, but we're confident that in this fight, the right side of science will come out on the right side of history.