A little less than a year ago, Paul Hodes voted to kill funding for abstinence education in the 2010 Budget. (I wrote about it here.) He hailed it as a necessary cost cutting measure even though 75% of all HHS money for teen sex programs already went to promoting condom and contraception use. By his reckoning, 100% was the better course of action for any federal money to reduce unwanted pregnancies. That’s choice for you. His choice.
But Hodes was wrong then and he is wrong now. A recent report from the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent medicine, the most extensive of its kind to date, (Reported in the April 5th issue of National Review- Sub. required) revealed that neither safe sex programs nor combined contraception and abstinence programs, were as successful as abstinence only education at reducing the risky sex that leads to unwanted teen pregnancy.
Another problem that didn’t interest Paul Hodes much last spring won’t bother him much now either. Studies continue to confirm that 90% of Parents (aka-Voters) prefer abstinence-only over safe sex education. On the opposite side, only 9% of parents believe its ok for teenagers to have sex as long as they use contraception. 91% feel it is more important to wait to have sex at all. So Paul Hodes is, if nothing else, consistent; whatever voters overwhelmingly want, we can expect he’ll advise against, based on what the party tells him is best, not the evidence or the will of the people.
Cross Posted From NH Insider
