Dispatches from the Creation Wars

The trend has triggered intense lobbying of state legislators and governors around the country. Supporters of the programs are scrambling to reverse the decisions, while opponents are pressuring more states to join the trend.

"This wave of states rejecting the money is a bellwether," said William Smith of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a Washington-based advocacy and education group that opposes abstinence-only programs. "It's a canary in the coal mine of what's to come."

"We hope that it sends a message to the politicians in Washington that this program needs to change, and states need to be able to craft a program that is the best fit for their young people and that is not a dictated by Washington ideologues," Smith said.

Smith and other critics said they hope that if enough states drop out, Congress will redirect the funding to comprehensive sex education programs that include teaching about the use of condoms and other contraceptives.

"I think this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of continued funding of these programs," said John Wagoner of Advocates for Youth, another Washington advocacy group. "How can they ignore so many states slapping a return-to-sender label on this funding?"

But supporters said they plan to fight for the programs state by state.

I like this big of illogic from the Federal government:

But Koutstaal, the federal official, took issue with critics who blame abstinence programs for the increase in teen births, noting that rates have continued to decline for 10-to-14-year-olds -- the ages typically targeted by the programs.

"I think it's awfully hard to blame abstinence education for the increase in birth rates," he said.

But this ignores what several studies have actually concluded, which is that while the programs do help students put off sexual activity a bit later than they had previously, they also make it less likely that those students will use birth control when they do become sexually active. The Federal funding actually requires that the abstinence-only programs not even mention contraception except to discuss failure rates, so this is hardly a surprise. This is quite consistent with the rates staying lower for the younger group who are actually in such programs and the increasing rates for the older group after they leave the program.