Sex education: Just say no

Abstinence-only education is up for grabs under the new government JUDITH VOGTLI, director of an upstate New York-based abstinence organisation called ProjecTruth, is worried that the golden age of “abstinence-only” education may have come to an end. George Bush junior helped increase funding for this kind of sex education—which focuses on chastity as the way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and discusses condoms only in terms of failure—to over $175m a year. The fate of that money, and of abstinence education itself, is uncertain under a new administration and Congress. Ms Vogtli need only wait a few weeks. Barack Obama will submit the first draft of his budget to Congress later this month. In the meantime, her organisation, funded entirely by a government grant, is trying to go about business as usual. That means teaching about abstaining from sex, drugs and alcohol in New York schools and holding its sixth annual abstinence Creativity Contest, to ... (link)