When Will We Get Rid of Those Dreadful Abstinence-Only Programs?

The president's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), launched in 2003, is the largest humanitarian effort aimed at one disease in history, with $15 billion dollars in relief funds guaranteed over five years, much of it in Africa. Too bad it requires that one third of the funding go to abstinence-only programs that are required to mention nothing about condoms (other than their failure rates!). This is like being on a boat with crates of life preservers surrounded by people drowning and doing nothing but shouting through a megaphone about the importance of early swimming lessons.

Furthermore, the U.S. gives out $50 million dollars per year in grants to states that institute abstinence-only-until-marriage sex-education programs. I am reminded of a friend's story about substitute teaching at an inner-city school where a sixteen-year-old confided in him that he had had sex with a girl who then got pregnant, but he knew it couldn't be his because he didn't love the girl.

These dreadful programs have been largely absent from the dialogue among the candidates -- I only hope that our next president, Democrat or Republican, is not enough of a dickhead to try to hide condoms from people that are dying of AIDS, and make a real effort to save the dying rather than lecture them.

This week's song is about all that - enjoy "Lectures For The Dying", and for more information please visit pepfarwatch.org.

Max and the Marginalized write and record a new song every week and post them every Thursday on The Huffington Post and their MySpace page, which has all of the songs (there are ten so far) available for download.

Lectures for the Dying

Across the sea, the pledge cards stack up faithfully
This lesson is an elegy in charity's disguise
You must admit, it's hard to play a scientist
When you're handcuffed to a moralist with crosses in his eyes
And I should hope we'd throw this drowning man a rope
But the zealots have the stethoscopes in this pointless exercise
Wagging fingers in their faces as a thousand others die
From a crate of moral exports that no one else will ever care to buy

No lectures for the dying
Who don't do like they should
Don't count on them replying
'Cause they don't hear so good
This murder isn't worth comparing
To a single thing they do
Everyone can hear them screaming, everyone but you

Back here at home
The blackboards and the microphones
They languish in the catacombs of retrograde pursuit
There once were walls between the pulpit and the hospital
But suddenly they stand so small like headstones for the truth
Substitute the information with omission and decree
I guess I use a different metric to measure immorality, so please...

No lectures for the dying
Who don't do like they should
Don't count on them replying
'Cause they don't hear so good
This murder isn't worth comparing
To a single thing they do
Everyone can hear them screaming, everyone but you

From a crate of moral exports that no one will ever buy
From my perch atop these corpses
You and I won't see this eye to eye

No lectures for the dying
Who don't do like they should
Don't count on them replying
'Cause they don't hear so good
This murder isn't worth comparing
To a single thing they do
Everyone can hear them screaming, everyone but you

Comments

[ReligiousWar]

As I understand it, the bush administration's reasoning for NO healthcare funding here in America is that this is a capitalist country. How then do they justify all that $$$ being funneled into faith based programs. You can not have it both ways. With proof that abstinence only programs do not work, why is teaching abstinence legal.

[gblair]

Public health issues belong in the secular and not the religious arena; decisions supported by science and not dogma.

[PJBroughton]

I was brought up by athiest parents who adopted both my brother and myself in the late 50's...we are both here as the result of unwed teen pregnancies. Our respective birth parents were raised in strictly religious households in Ohio as were my adoptive parents; one Catholic, the other Jewish. Both now athiest.

Respect for one's parent, respect for one's self, respect for others, compassion, sex and prevention, most of all TOLERANCE was taught by my parents AT HOME. We weren't afraid to talk to them about anything because they were always accessible and open minded. Education in the home.

Abstinance is the ideal every parent wishes their child to follow. However, it's unrealistic to believe that will always be the case. These days when sex could in FACT become a matter of life and death, children should be better equipped to protect themselves. The support of the schools in providing the FACTS without prejudice to young people is paramount to their being better equipped to make informed decisions. No one's advocating pre-marital sex for teens. They are advocating staying alive and healthy, taking responsibility for the health of potential partners, and avoiding unplanned pregnancy.

Children don't need enforced prayer or a class about creation in public school. That's why we have houses of worship, parochial schools, and the freedom to choose.

Perhaps Sex Education and Creationism should both be electives...that way the blurred line between reality and idealism can continue uninterrupted.

[moderationsmuse]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUsyHVjacJ0

[moderationsmuse]

To various writers who commented on my remark that people get over disease easier than a broken heart, I knew my remark was provocative when I made it but I stand by it.
Your comments come at the question from different angles. First off is for me, not just what information is being taught to children, but where that information is coming from. I know for a fact that I'm better able to teach my kids than the public schools. Having had lots of up-close and personal experience now with the public schools, I would say that anyone who entrusts the schools with the most important responsibilities is being -- well, OVERLY trusting, if not downright foolish.
To one who thinks my choice puts my kids at risk, let it be noted that The Muse's kids are doing rather well academically. The Muse here is a good mom. So, of course, one option is my kids read about the science some for themselves. They are not slaves of either the system or their wonderful Mom because already I am training them to think for themselves.
As to the fatality of AIDS. I have had, admittedly some limited, experience dealing with people with terminal illness. And I stand by my assertion that people deal more bravely with the fact of dying than with human betrayal.
Teach your children about love, teach them to be circumspect. But they cannot be afraid of love either. We need love like we need food and light and oxygen.
Safe sex is an oxymoron. We are both body and spirit. And we cannot be healthy without both kinds of well being. "Healthy mind in a healthy body." (Juvenal) That's the Muse's idea of "education."
If you're waiting for No Child Left Behind to deliver on that, you'll be waiting forever. Anyway, it's not their job, Parents. It's yours. Buck stops here. Best wishes to all, Muse

[FogBelter]

Sex Prohibition, which is the real purpose of Abstinence Only Programs, is absurd.

You might as well develop a program to curb aspiration, defecation, or urination.

The proper approach is to give developing children insight into the biological urges that are normal to the Human Condition and give them the tools to prevent pregnancy and disease.

Bottom line ... Sex isn't a choice it is our species reason for being.

Sex pre-existed all human culture and religion, and will still be occurring long after our current Pop Culture religions have been properly categorized as quaint Mythologies.

The only way Sex won't outlast Religion is if Religion drives the Human Race into extinction ... which is a distinct possibility.

[moderationsmuse]

"Sex education" is one reason why my kids will not be participating in the public schools after a certain age. (Granted I have other reasons too.)
The problem of "sex education" is that it only provides information about the body and says nothing about the soul.
People get over disease -- even a horrible disease like AIDS -- a lot easier than they get over a broken heart.
In any case, I plan to have some talks with my kids to try to help them avoid the broken hearts -- as well as to care for the health of their bodies. "Safe sex" is an oxymoron.
There is no safe sex when love is not there.

[cinemaven]

It just plain boggles my mind that anyone would even think that only telling kids about abstinence would constitute a sex ed program.

Our public schools (Ontario) teach an age specific "health" course from grade 1 - 8. They get to the good stuff primarily in grade 8 where they visit the local public health office and talk about condoms and how to use them. Abstinence is discussed but they also learn how to put a condom on a banana.

The Canadian teen pregnancy rate is 42.7/1000 teens age 15 - 19. The U.S. national rate is double that. In Texas, the rate is 113/1000 in the same age group....

As a parent, I told my boys more than they ever wanted to know about sex, including the fact that their bodies would be leading them around for a few years. I let them know that sex feels great which is why so many kids end up pregnant so it's up to them to use their heads (the big ones). I also told them drugs are fantastic and make you feel amazing right up until you become addicted. Same with alcohol, it'll give you courage and make you funny and after a while, you won't be able to get through a social event without it... just like their uncle who's an alcoholic and spoils every family event. (we're lucky to have him as a teaching aid)

I remember the first time I got drunk at a party... I realized my parents had lied to me about how bad drinking was, to me, it was great and my parents were wrong. I don't want my kids thinking I lied - I want them to remember that I told them it would feel that way and then to remember the other things I told them.

It's not rocket science.. give kids all the info, tell them the truth and trust them to be smart enough to make good decisions.

[dahpunkster]

i live in ohio and due to some of the conservative hell bent on doing what they niavely and sometimes selfishly
feel is the right thing
am afraid they will try to do the same thing they have done in
south dakota - we live in an imperfect world
and adolescants of a certian age should know
what to do to take care of themselves. i am almost afraid to say this,if we fail to do so, we are going to end up just like africa
and ancient rome

[DoctorHeart]

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2006/751/721/2006-751721671-02c3394c-9.pdf


The federal government also gave the National Council For Adoption, the lobbying group for mainly religious adoption agencies, 1.6 Million in 2005. Their Form 990 shows that they spent just about 1.6 Million on the Infant Adoption Awareness Training Program, which trains people working in health clinics, doctors offices, etc to advocate for adoption.

You do the math.

[swampthing]

More people suffering due to religious dogma! What a shocker!

[rektruax]

Where are you guy's from? Your singing accent is a little hard to nail down.

[BMSstudy]

The first paragraph talked about PEPFAR and mentioned that most of the $15B was set aside for Africa. Also, 1/3 of the funding was specifically set aside for programs that discuss abstinence only, thus $10B can be used for non-abstinence only programs right?

Paragraph two discuss US states programs that deal with abstinance only; $50MM. What is the dollar figure that the Fed Gov't gives to the states in total? Is $50MM a seriously large part of the gross?

[Purple Girl]

Oh there plan is not to help nor save humanity- nor anything else.
Birth is the one and only right you are to have. After that you're on your own.
Starve or die of disease,or warfare, or abuse/neglect- aren't you glad they made sure you were born so you could linger in the rapture of suffering. And be sure that after all this suffering and pain you will be lifted to heaven (which we had no intentions of providing here on Earth for you).
Before birth and after death are experiences we can not intellectualize- why do we bother to be concerned about it. there is no control. The only control we have is over the here & now and the responsiblity for it's continuation for the future.
Let's try to take the best care of all that is ours to manage first.
Time to scrape the bullshit off our philosphical boots and come in the House of ManKIND.

[Vajara]

Self Denial produces Self Indulgence and that is why the religious right programs do not work. The human being can find a balance in their life once they discover their dignity and self respect. Preaching against sex and making it a sin and bad only pushes the psyche of a young, healthy teen to find out for themselves if it is like that. Of course it isn't so the focus and message must be on respect and the use of condoms and other protective devises, not on denial or indulgence.