The Bush administration is apparently fighting back against critics of its federally funded sex education programs, which mostly contain the abstinence-only message. The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has come out with a 40-page report on sex education programs that feature the use of condoms and other protective measures. The report criticizes these programs for not stressing the failure rates of such protections when it comes to pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
This is just the latest salvo in this war. In April, a separate federal study found there was no evidence that sexual-abstinence programs were effective in changing the sexual behavior of teenagers. Some states had already come to that conclusion themselves and were turning down federal grants (how often does that happen?) for these abstinence only program.
Will the latest report allow abstinence-only programs to regain a measure of support? That remains to be seen.