By Ruth Marcus
10/24/2007
Printed in the Washington Post, Page A19
Last week President Bush named yet another person to oversee the federally funded family planning program who doesn't seem especially keen on federally funded family planning. He might have done better to pick his daughter Jenna.
Her book, "Ana's Story," about a Central American teenage mother who is HIV-positive, is refreshingly reality-based about sexual behavior -- in a way that her father's administration resists.
President Bush pushes funding for abstinence-only sex education, with students given no information about birth control or safe sex. Jenna Bush, who met Ana while working as a UNICEF intern in Latin America, understands that abstinence isn't always the chosen path.
"If you decide abstinence is right for you, don't let anyone tell you otherwise," she writes. "But if you decide that you're ready for a sexual relationship, the best way to protect yourself from HIV and other [sexually transmitted infections] is to be faithful to your partner and use a condom every time."
Good advice -- if only the federal government wanted American children of Ana's age to hear it. Instead, abstinence-only programs are riddled with misstatements that exaggerate the failure rate of condoms and minimize their ability to protect against disease.
