The Boston Globe
Proposal to use abstinence funds in schools fails
By Michael Levenson, Globe Correspondent | March 10, 2005
A proposal by Governor Mitt Romney that would have focused sex education programs on abstinence lessons in the schools was defeated by the Legislature yesterday, dealing the governor a setback on an issue dear to social conservatives.
The House voted 104-44 to continue the state's current policy of spending federal abstinence funds on television commercials and ads on subways and buses. The Senate also rejected his approach on a voice vote.
Romney and his allies in the abstinence education movement had hoped to send the money directly to classrooms, where they argued it would have been more effective in reaching teenagers.
The debate over how to spend a relatively minor grant of $740,000 from the federal government drew passionate lobbying from advocates on both sides of the issue and highlighted a simmering feud over how best to reach teenagers in a culture saturated with sex. Romney lost the battle, but succeeded in bringing the issue to the front of public debate.
''The governor believes the most effective abstinence education is done in the classroom, in a more personalized setting with young people," Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said yesterday. ''It's really a question of how you can most effectively spend these limited dollars."
If Romney's measure had passed and the federal money had gone to schools, opponents say, it would have increased the focus on abstinence to the exclusion of other forms of sex education. It would have meant, for example, that educators receiving the funds could discuss only the failure rates of popular forms of contraception, without discussing their effectiveness in preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, opponents said.
''We don't think those programs are effective, and in fact they can be harmful because they're misleading, they're incomplete," said Melissa Kogut, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts. ''For young people who are already sexually active, they're not going to get the information they need to best take care of themselves or protect themselves."
Romney drew support from some Democrats, as well as the lobbying arm of the Catholic Church and the Massachusetts Family Institute. Opponents included the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, and other abortion rights groups, who argued the plan would limit what educators who receive the funds can discuss in the classroom.
Planned Parenthood was among the interest groups urging lawmakers to defeat Romney's proposal yesterday. Their advocates argued that condom use should be taught in the classroom and that abstinence funds are best spent on reaching a broader audience outside the schools.
''The big troubling question about these programs, is: are they actually causing disease transmission to go up because they discourage condom use," said Erin Rowland, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman. ''That's really at the heart of this debate. It's the concern that they're putting teens at risk by spreading misleading information."
Since 1998, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health has spent its abstinence funds on radio and television ads for students ages 9 to 12 and 15 to 17 and to produce brochures and films in Spanish and English. The votes yesterday amounted to an endorsement of that policy and drew praise from abortion rights groups.
Abstinence education supporters expressed disappointment after the vote. They said that even if the measure had passed, schools would have been able to teach about contraception in other classes.
''The only foolproof way to prevent teen pregnancy is abstinence," said Maria C. Parker, associated director for public policy for the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the church's policy arm. ''All the rest of them have a failure rate; someone has to get real about what's happening here."
The vote actually represented an about-face for the Legislature, which voted last year to spend the money on classroom lessons. Some lawmakers said they did not remember voting for the plan, and lawmakers repealed the measure several weeks ago. The back-and-forth spurred Romney, a Republican, to reintroduce the measure restricting the funds.
Representative Viriato Manuel deMacedo, a Plymouth Republican, spoke in favor of Romney's proposal on the House floor. ''The people that support the abstinence education programs believe it is best spent in the classroom, as opposed to pamphlets that sit on a table that never get used," deMacedo said.
Representative Eugene L. O'Flaherty, a Chelsea Democrat, crossed party lines to support Romney's classroom-based approach. ''This program is specifically designed to teach young men and young women about the values of abstinence," O'Flaherty said. ''Maybe one out of 10 will hear that message, but at least that one will."
Kristian Mineau -- president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which also supported Romney's plan -- said he was worried that $740,000 would be completely ineffective if spent on a media campaign. Other supporters of abstinence education agreed.
''A television advertisement on MTV evaporates in seconds and costs millions of dollars," Mineau said. ''Births, [sexually transmitted diseases], abortion [are] linked to this, and these are all social issues that destroy the fiber of the family. So we believe abstinence is the most effective way to combat the social ills of the family."
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