Just Say No to Whoopie, continued

It is always interesting to me to see what sneaks into a bill in the dark of the night when Senators think that no one is paying attention.

The health care reform bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee includes an amendment, introduced by the Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, that would revive a separate $50 million grant-making program for abstinence-only programs run by states.

Good old Orrin Hatch, a safe bet to making sure that ineffective ideology remains part of public policy. Never mind that abstinence-only programs have been a dismal failure.

Texas has the third highest teen birth rate in the nation -- 50% higher than the national average [snip] increases across all "races and ethnicities ... demonstrate that the current lack of sexual health curriculum in our schools is seriously harming all of our children." [snip] 94% of students in Texas receive abstinence-only sexual education and, to date, more than $1 billion in federal funding has been spent on abstinence-only education. Texas ranks No. 1 in the amount of federal funding for "abstinence-only education dollars in the country -- more than $18 million"

Legislation based on wishful thinking is what the GOP always accuses the Left of. This is as clear a case of wishful thinking intended to use policy to shape behavior (another Right against Left canard) as I can probably find. Let's strip this out of the final bill, shall we Nancy?