from USA Today, via Yahoo!:
In sex ed, abstinence-only loses support but keeps funds Wed Dec 26, 12:22 AM ET
For Christian conservatives, the pregnancy, at 16, of Nickelodeon actress Jamie Lynn Spears — the wholesome star of Zoey 101 and younger sister of troubled singer Britney Spears — poses a good news-bad news dilemma.
"We should commend girls like Jamie Lynn Spears for making a courageous decision to have the baby," summed up Bill Maier, vice president of the conservative ministry Focus on the Family. "On the other hand, there's nothing glamorous or fun about being an unwed teen mother."
No one would argue with that sentiment. For teens of lesser means, pregnancy takes away much more than fun and glamour. It greatly reduces chances that the young mother will ever escape poverty.
For all the agreement about the problem, however, a failure to recognize facts appears to be interfering with finding solutions. The Bush administration is sticking adamantly to abstinence-only sex education, which was adopted at the urging of religious conservatives, even as evidence mounts that such programs are failing.
The teen birth rate, which declined 34% from 1991 to 2005, increased 3% in 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's too soon to say whether this is a blip or a trend, but at the grassroots level, states and school districts appear to be turning away from abstinence-only, presumably because of poor results. The Washington Post reported this month that 14 states had notified the federal government they would no longer be seeking money for abstinence-only programs. .......(more)
The complete piece is at;
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20071226/cm_usatoday/insexedabstinenceonlylosessupportbutkeepsfunds;_ylt=AtOR0qdwk8.Xvr0rtPIGOvas0NUE 
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