Federal Abstinence-Only Sex Ed. Program Revived

Instructional Approach Winds Up in Health-Care Law

Although overshadowed by other issues in the health-care debate, a controversial abstinence-only approach to sex education that recently saw its federal support severed is getting a new lease on life—a five-year lease worth $250 million, to be precise—under the final legislative package signed by President Barack Obama.

At the same time, the health-care law also provides $375 million over five years to promote more-comprehensive approaches to sex education that touch on both abstinence and the use of contraceptives to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The emphasis in the program is on funding efforts that are “evidence-based,” “medically accurate,” and “age-appropriate,” the law says.

That funding stream, called the Personal Responsibility Education program, appears to dovetail with a new teenage-pregnancy-prevention initiative championed by the Obama administration and financed at nearly $115...