President Obama and Speaker Pelosi, if you have to throw a bone to the right wing, let it not be the bones of the youth who elected you. We just want the facts that can save our lives.

Every year when I was in high

school in Lubbock, Texas, we were herded into the auditorium for a lecture

from a local youth pastor about the birds and the bees.

At the culmination of every

presentation, the pastor pulled a girl up on stage, produced a dirty,

dingy toothbrush from his pocket and asked if she would brush her teeth

with it. When she invariably said no, he pulled out another toothbrush,

this one in its original box, and repeated the question. When she said yes to that one, he brandished the rejected toothbrush above

his head and announced to the audience, "If you have sex before marriage,

you are the dirty toothbrush."

Sex. Abortion. Parenthood. Power. The latest news, delivered straight to your inbox. SUBSCRIBE Leading advocates for a sensible, comprehensive federal sex education policy call on Congress to zero out funding for failed abstinence-only programs.

A report recently released

on the state of sex education in Texas details other bizarre things

students are taught in the classroom about sex, contraception and their

bodies, all subsidized by federal dollars. One skit titled "Jumping

Off the Bridge" concludes that giving a condom to a teen is like

saying, "Well if you insist on killing yourself by jumping off

the bridge, at least wear these elbow pads." Another presentation

equates pre-marital sex with instances of marital murder-suicide. Still

another compares women’s sexuality to crock pots that take awhile

to get warmed up, and men’s to microwaves that are ready to cook at

a moment’s notice.

An entire generation of American

teens has been confused, misinformed and endangered by abstinence-only-until-marriage

programs like these. They are not just paid for by the federal government;

states can’t use these dollars for anything else.

In the past fifteen years alone,

more than a billion taxpayer dollars have been doled out to every state

to teach curricula that often contain factual inaccuracies about condoms

and contraceptives, generalizations about sexuality that are based on

biases about gender and sexual orientation, and religious messaging

that probably violates the U.S. Constitution.

The programs were a pet project

of the Bush administration, and key to attracting votes and contributions

from the religious right. Now, much of the money is still being doled

out to faith-based organizations and crisis pregnancy centers, the latter

often stating as their sole purpose the convincing of pregnant women,

including ten and twelve year-olds and their families, that having an

abortion will mean a lifetime of regret.

Unbelievable as it may sound,

there is no federal law mandating or supervising the medical or scientific

accuracy of information taught in schools or given out in tax-exempt

pregnancy centers, a loophole used to tell young people that condoms

don’t work, homosexuality is never part of normal human behavior and

sexuality is the one academic subject in which students will be rewarded

for lack of knowledge.

In fact, abstinence-only sex

education is so damaging that 25 governors, Republicans and Democrats,

have refused abstinence-only funds. Rising rates of sexually transmitted

infections, unwanted teen births and an increased need for abortion

have dramatized the lack of efficacy and danger of such programs. And

last year, the Journal of Adolescent Health published its opinion that

abstinence-only funding may constitute a human rights violation.

The huge majority of Americans

agree. Eighty-eight percent think teens should receive information about condoms and

contraception as well as abstinence in the classroom. Yet, no moves

have been made in Washington to make good on these convictions.

If President Obama and Democratic

leaders were to fulfill their own promises it could only be a financial

win. The public costs associated with teen pregnancy alone total more

than nine billion dollars a year, with additional costs of treating

sexually transmitted infections. Economic impact statements have shown

that every dollar spent on comprehensive sex education would be one

of the few good investments these days. Failing to eliminate all funding

for abstinence-only programs would be a setback for human rights and

tempt a suit for taxpayer fraud.

President Obama and Speaker

Pelosi, if you have to throw a bone to the right wing, let it not be

the bones of the youth who elected you. The young people who so overwhelmingly

voted for change – partly on the promise of comprehensive sex education

– are certainly not asking for a bailout. We just want the facts that

can save our lives.