Abstinence Education Proponents Prepare One Million Parent March
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 2, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Backers of abstinence education are preparing a new campaign to counteract the media bias and attacks from abortion proponents on Capitol Hill. They’re hoping to organize a national march and rally featuring one million parents to support abstinence education for teens and young adults.
The National Abstinence Education Association is leading the effort and it has already sent out tens of thousands of emails to supporters to try to recruit volunteers to help organize the event.
A Washington Post report indicates the campaign could top $1 million and result in significant educational and public relations efforts to promote abstinence on a national level.
The pro-abstinence group hopes the march will result in parents stepping up efforts on the state level to lobby for more abstinence funding and support and increased pressure on local schools to adopt pro-abstinence curriculum.
Valerie Huber, the National Abstinence Education Association’s director, told the Post: "There are powerful special interest groups who can far outspend what parents can in terms of promoting their agenda. But we recognize that parents more than make up for that by their determination and motivation to protect their own children."
"Parents are being misled. They are told the content of the curricula in their children’s classrooms stress abstinence and just have information to make decisions in case they become sexually active," Huber added.
"But most of these programs provide explicit how-to information that give teens a green light for activities that put them at risk," she said.
The pro-abstinence group also launched the powerful Parents for Truth campaign, which is working to recruit moms and dads to lobby their local schools to adopt abstinence curriculum and elect leaders who promote it.
The new website, www.parentsfortruth.org, has dozens of resources for families, including a new three-minute video that exposes the curriculum now in place in thousands of U.S. schools.
The campaign will likely find significant support among parents.
A May 2007 Zogby poll shows an overwhelming number of parents want their kids to practice abstinence until marriage and support abstinence education programs that drive that point home.
The poll found that 83% of parents want their children to save sex until marriage and a majority of families believe that programs should reinforce the abstinence message when broaching sex ed in the classroom.
Once they understand what abstinence education actually teaches, 6 out of 10 parents would rather their child receive abstinence education vs. comprehensive sex education. Only 3 out of 10 prefer comprehensive, Zogby showed.
NAEA – https://www.abstinenceassociation.org
