Senate Finance Committee will vote today on whether to send its bill to the full Senate. Baucus says he has the votes to pass it. So I guess we should be happy.
Fortunately, this is not what will wind up in the eventual bill that has to pass both houses and signed by Obama.
Like making sausage, you don't want to know too much about what goes into it. But here's one thing that must be left out. It apparently was put in to try to get more conservative support, but it should not make it into the final bill. They aren't going to vote for it anyway.
The bill includes $50 million annually for abstinence sex education for five years, plus another $75 million annually for pregnancy prevention and "Personal Responsibility Education for Adulthood Training."
I'm all for sex education and personal responsibility. But if the government is going to pay for it, it must be comprehensive and not some conservative religious zealot's idea that "abstinence only" is what we should teach. That has been proven again and again not to work. It may initially lead to a small percentage of teens delaying becoming sexually active, but among those who do, the rate of pregnancy is higher than those who have comprehensive sex education. So why should $50 million a year of tax payer money go for it?
Ralph
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