In February, Congress passed a $75 million dollar, Title V spending deal termed Sexual Risk Avoidance Education. It stipulates that organizations receiving funding for Sexual Education must promote abstinence until marriage over all other types of contraception. These programs are required to teach young adults about other contraception options but cannot make them available or exemplify their use in a classroom setting.
In light of the attention paid to trump's sexual misconduct allegations, the irony of his administration promoting abstinence is not unseen.
On Thursday, Jimmy Kimmel presented a funny abstinence pamphlet for Trump, exhibiting how his sexual delay education plan would go down. But these congressional measures are no joke.
The flip side
Despite the strides being taken towards increased abstinence education, recent data suggests that programs, implemented during the Obama era, have been extremely effective in lowering rates of both teen sexual activity and teen pregnancy.
According to the Washington Post, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an 8% drop from 2005 to 2015 in the number of teens engaging in sexual activity. Since 2006, "births among Hispanic and black teens have dropped by nearly half." And overall, the national birthrate among teens has reached a historical low.
As reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, there are at, or below, 25 births annually per 1,000 young women.
Donald Trump and Mike Pence are getting involved in your sex life — again: https://t.co/Z4DPyZ7mc2 #Fight4BirthControl pic.twitter.com/SYgSfz5e6E
— Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) February 27, 2018
These statistics are most likely the result of Obama's Teenage Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Program. TPP was established not only to award grants to a diverse selection of pregnancy prevention programs but to analyze different approaches according to their effectiveness. Using this data, the administration would be able to determine the most successful methods of sexual education and design a comprehensive program for generations to come.
What are the implications?
As quoted by the Washington Post, columnist Nicholas Kristof reported that "nine of the 10 states with the highest teen birthrates voted Republican in 2016. And nine of the 10 states with the lowest teen birthrates voted Democratic.”
Abstinence has not yet been proven to be the most effective form of pregnancy prevention education. And it demands an intentionally limited and stigmatized view of both contraception and sexual freedom. Updated terms like "Sexual Risk Avoidance Education" and "sexual delay" have thinly veiled the strong religious motivation behind abstinence education.
With greater emphasis placed on this agenda, the increasingly positive outcomes this country has been seeing regarding teen pregnancy could very well begin to reverse.
