Since 1996, the United States has committed over $1.1 billion dollars (through both federal and state matching funds) to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Additional funding proposed in the President's new budget would bring the total allocated for these programs to $205.5 million for fiscal year 2006, an increase of more than 50 percent since 2004.

Yet there is no scientific evidence* that abstinence-only programs are effective. Most recently, Rep. Henry A. Waxman released a report showing that many federally funded abstinence-only education programs use curricula that distort information about the effectiveness of contraceptives, misrepresent the risks of abortion, blur religion and science, treat stereotypes about girls and boys as scientific fact, and contain basic scientific errors.

In addition, state evaluations of the abstinence-only federal initiative are just now becoming available. Evaluations from Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, and even President Bush's home state of Texas found that abstinence-only programs show little, if any, evidence of success in impacting teen sexual behavior.

The Institute of Medicine has cited abstinence-only-until-marriage programs as examples of "poor fiscal and public health policy," and, in addition, the nation's most trusted medical organizations, such as the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAM), all support comprehensive sex education — an approach that includes strong messages of both abstinence and contraception. Every Surgeon General since C. Everett Koop has also recommended a comprehensive approach to sex education.

No federal funding currently exists for comprehensive sex education in the schools. Recently, however, The Responsible Education About Life Act (the REAL Act) — H.R. 768 and S. 368 — was introduced in both the House and Senate. This bill would provide funding to states for medically accurate, age appropriate, comprehensive sex education in the schools — education that includes information about both abstinence and contraception, from both a values and public health perspective.

— Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt

* As you saw in the film, the debate over which approach works best in America's schools is one that engenders strong opinions and lively discussions. To hear other points of view on this issue, please read our interview with Dr. Joe McIlhaney, the founder of the Medical Institute of Sexual Health and a proponent of abstinence-only sex education, and take the time to tell us your position in our viewer discussion boards.