WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama wants to eliminate spending on abstinence-only education and spend it on programs to reduce teen pregnancy that don’t take an abstinence-only approach.
The proposal in Obama’s 2010 budget plan released Thursday could run into opposition from conservatives.
Administration budget documents say Obama wants to redirect funding from “abstinence-only education programs to evidence-based and promising teen pregnancy prevention programs.”
The state grant program for abstinence education that Obama wants to eliminate is getting $38 million in 2009. He’s requesting $50 million instead to support existing teen pregnancy prevention programs and develop new ones.
The most positive results, Obama’s budget plan asserts, come from programs that “provide a range of services in addition to comprehensive sex education, such as after school activities, academic support or service learning.”