Action Alert: Statement by NAEA Regarding 2011 Budget
On Friday, the House Appropriations Committee released their FY 2011 budget extension. In their quest to make billions of dollars of cuts to discretionary programs, the House Appropriators eliminated the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPP) program. The TPP program provided the lion’s share of its funding to contraceptive-centered programs and it provided no priority on the risk avoidance abstinence message. Despite the proposed elimination of this program, abundant federal funding still remains for contraceptive-centered programs, but none is included for abstinence education in the federal budget.
NAEA is disappointed that the House did not take the opportunity to bring parity to sex education by reestablishing a single-focused abstinence-centered education program. The current funding disparity between abstinence and non-abstinence education is 1:16.
By not restoring abstinence education to the current budget, contraceptive-centered sex education remains the priority for the Federal Government.
We are hopeful that either in FY11 or in FY12, the federal policy for sex education will reflect a priority on abstinence education by bringing proper balance to this important issue.
Read the entire funding bill here.
Noted on page 295 (Section 1821) of the funding bill, the TPP program was zeroed out.
See the funding disparity between abstinence and non-abstinence programs here.