New York state has rejected about $3.5 million in funding from the federal Title V abstinence education program, state health commissioner Richard Daines announced in a statement Thursday, the New York Times reports. According to Daines, $2.6 million that the state provided for the same abstinence program will be spent on other sex education programs (Medina, New York Times, 9/21).

Title V distributes money based on a formula favoring states with more low-income children. To receive Title V funds, states must adhere to certain requirements, including barring teachers from discussing contraception and requiring them to say that sex within marriage is "the expected standard of sexual activity." Many state governors have said the grants place too many restrictions on the curricula (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 7/18). According to the Times, at least 11 states have decided to decline Title V funding in recent years.

"The Bush administration's abstinence-only program is an example of a failed national health care policy directive," Daines said, adding that the policy is "based on ideology rather than on sound scientific-based evidence that must be the cornerstone of good public health care policy."

According to Daines, the state made the decision based on evidence that the abstinence-only program did little to prevent teen pregnancies. He added that he also objected to the program's "narrow ideological view, which is not the direction [New York] want[s] to go in for sexual health." The state should encourage the teaching of condom use and include discussions of abstinence, Daines said. Sex education is not mandated by the state, and individual districts are allowed to adopt their own programs, the Times reports.

NYCLU Report, Reaction
Daines' announcement came the same day that the New York Civil Liberties Union, which opposes abstinence-only sex education, released a report detailing the number of abstinence-only programs in the state, the Times reports. According to the report, New York state is second to Texas in the amount of funding it receives for abstinence education. "We think it is a good thing that [the state is] making efforts to close programs that were misinforming adolescents," Galen Sherwin -- director of the Reproductive Rights Project for the NYCLU and author of the report -- said, adding, "But there is still a long way to go before you get to comprehensive, medically sound sex education."

Supporters of the program said that it should still remain an option in the state. "We've seen a lot of attacks on this program," Leslee Unruh, president of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, said, adding, "A lot of kids that are abstaining are made to feel as if they are from a Victorian age and they are not with the 'Sex and the City' crowd" (New York Times, 9/21).

Dennis Poust, a spokesperson for the New York State Catholic Conference, said, "Most people would agree that teenagers are too young to be having sex, therefore the consistent message to them ought to be that this is a behavior that is undesirable and you should refrain from it." He added, "The idea of so-called comprehensive sex education sounds OK at first blush, but what the children are being taught is instruction in condom usage, which leads to promotion of sexual activity" (Crowley, Albany Times Union, 9/21).

The NYCLU report is available online.