Obama Budget: Boost for Abortion, Contraceptive-Based Sex Ed
- May 12, 2009
With the release of his first detailed budget, President Barack Obama has given Americans a window into how he would like to spend their tax dollars. Yet his calls to open up taxpayer-funded abortion in the nation’s capital and to eliminate funding for abstinence education are giving social conservatives pause.
If you agree, please tell your representative and senators to oppose any bill that would subsidize abortions in the District of Columbia or cut abstinence education funding.
On May 7, the president sent Congress his spending recommendations for the next fiscal year that include a plan to repeal a ban on federal and local funding of abortion in the District of Columbia. This would erase a longstanding ethical line drawn by Congress. For most of the last two decades, Congress has prohibited subsidizing abortion in the District, with the rare exceptions of cases involving rape or incest or to save the life of the mother. The Dornan Amendment, to be struck under the proposal, has been renewed each year since 1988, with the exception of a few years under then-President Clinton.
The potential ramifications are still uncertain but assuredly unnerving. Americans would be forced into the business of funding several thousand abortions each year in the District. And a strategic inroad to opening up taxpayer-funded abortion across the nation would be created. The Hyde Amendment, renewed each year since 1976, prohibits the government from funding most abortions in the United States. But pro-lifers fear it could be targeted next.
The $3.4 trillion budget proposal also includes some unwelcome trimming in spending. Among the areas hit by the relatively meager $17 billion in cuts—just one-half percent of the total budget—are principled and successful programs that prepare youth for bright futures: abstinence education. In fact, the budget nixes abstinence-only education altogether, drying up more than $100 million that currently supports the Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) and Title V Abstinence Education programs. While the move is disturbing, it’s not surprising. Earlier this year, the president signed a bill to cut $14 million from abstinence education in the current year.
At the same time, the budget calls for more money for comprehensive sex education. The increase includes another $150 million for these programs that major on contraceptives and minor on abstinence. This comes on the heels of new data reaffirming the effectiveness of abstinence-only over comprehensive programs. In research released last week by the National Abstinence Education Association, teens enrolled in abstinence education programs demonstrated a 50 percent decrease in sexual onset. Encouraging youth to remain abstinent could not be more important in our sex-saturated society. But results seem to receive short shrift, trumped by an ideology opposed to the abstinence message.
As Congress considers the merits of the president’s budget over the next few months, members should bear in mind whose money they are spending. To millions of Americans, funding abortion and shifting funding from abstinence education to contraceptive-based education are not only unwise but also unethical options.
If you agree, please tell your representative and senators to oppose any bill that would subsidize abortions in the District of Columbia or cut abstinence education funding.