Can Congress Abstain from Abstinence?

Somebody sent me this article from Congressional Quarterly, which keeps some parts online and out in the open and some where you have to pay for them. I don't find it on their web site, so I can't give you a link. That publication follows what's going on in Congress; I get the rss feed for it, but this story wasn't included in that. It gets pretty technical, as you'll see, but it can be fascinating as well, watching them fight it out day to day on the Hill. The date on this is October 19th.

Heated Debate Ahead for Spending Bill Proposal Addressing Sex Education
By Alex Wayne, CQ Staff

Abstinence-only sex education, already taking a cut in the Senate version of the fiscal 2008 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill, could suffer a more serious setback Monday.

Senators are expected to debate a floor amendment by Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., that would prohibit federally funded abstinence courses from using "medically inaccurate" information in their curricula. Conservative critics of the bill say the proposal is a cleverly written means of ending abstinence-only education, something many Democrats oppose.

Oh, man, this is right out of the CRC's playbook. Those clever Democrats are cheating -- they're going to say that only accurate information can be taught, which means the classes will have a liberal bias.

Lautenberg's amendment is one of several controversial social issues the Senate has debated as it considers the bill to fund the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. Because of the agencies it covers, the bill has been a longtime venue for social policy debate.

The Senate has already dealt with two abortion amendments. One, affirming a law that prevents Medicaid from funding abortions, was adopted; the other, to ban Planned Parenthood from tapping federal family planning grants, was defeated.

Other pending amendments include measures by John Ensign, R-Nev., intended to prevent illegal immigrants from collecting Social Security benefits, and by Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that would use money committed to earmarks in the bill to instead pay for health insurance for children.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Oct. 19 he had reached agreement with Republicans to complete the legislation by midday Tuesday. President Bush has threatened to veto it.

The bill (HR 3043, S 1710) would provide $606 billion for the departments it covers, plus some independent agencies such as the Social Security Administration. Of the total, $149.9 billion is discretionary spending. The rest is mostly for entitlements: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and unemployment insurance.

The Senate version's discretionary spending represents a $5.4 billion increase over what was enacted in fiscal 2007 and is $9.6 billion more than Bush requested. It contains $1.9 billion less than the House-passed version.

Lautenberg is among many Democrats who think the government should fund not only abstinence education but also "comprehensive" sex education curricula, which include information about contraception and safe sex.

"Growing up isn't easy, and our kids find themselves in tough situations every day. They need all the information to make smart choices, and 'abstinence-only' programs are not enough," Lautenberg said in a March statement, when he and other Democrats introduced legislation that would fund "comprehensive" sex education.

His proposal would prohibit funding for any abstinence education programs that use "medically inaccurate" information. He defines that as data "unsupported or contradicted by peer-reviewed research by leading medical, psychological, and public health publications, organizations and agencies."

Critics say the broad definition would eliminate money for all abstinence-only courses. Even if a program used information found accurate by one peer-reviewed study, it would not be eligible for funding under the amendment if any other study questioned the curricula, said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

"It clearly would end abstinence education almost immediately," Rector said. "The definition . . . doesn't cover medical information; it covers everything. If anything that is said in an abstinence text is disagreed with by anything said anywhere else, you can't use it. And that would in effect eliminate virtually every sentence, and it's intended to do that."

A Lautenberg aide said the amendment would not end funding for abstinence programs.

"There are likely some that would be medically accurate, and we expect most to continue to receive funding," the aide said. "This would require all programs to be medically accurate before receiving funding."

I think the key here is the little phrase "peer-reviewed." Groups like the Heritage Foundation conduct "studies," whose results always support the socially conservative view. They publish those studies on their web site and issue press releases, and some reporters can't tell the difference between those "studies" and real scientific research that has undergone the scrutiny of experts in the field and been published in real peer-reviewed journals. These guys in Congress are simply saying that if the federal government is going to pay for classes, they should be teaching knowledge that has been found through peer-reviewed, scientific research. The Heritage Foundation kind of propagandists researchers are foaming at the mouth -- this will not be good for their business.

This is wonderful, just great. The Republicans are outraged, outraged I tell you, because those slimy Democrats insist that the stuff you teach kids in school, at least on the federal dollar, should be accurate. They know their classes can never qualify.

It was generous of the Democratic guy to say that it might at least be possible to have an abstinence-only class that told the truth. Kind of like, "in theory."

I don't know, am I the only one who sees the humor in this?