Health Programs Underfunded, Abstinence-Only Funds Doubled

New York, NY – Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) President Gloria Feldt today denounced President Bush’s meager budget requests for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“The president’s budget should be stamped with a health warning label. This proposal is an affront to women’s health needs, and it makes a mockery of reproductive health care and family planning services,” said Feldt. “By failing to meet the rising demand for reproductive health care, President Bush has exposed his blatant disregard for women’s health. Access to family planning information and services enables people to make responsible choices about the number and spacing of their children. Family planning is basic health care, promoting healthy families by preventing unplanned pregnancies. Unfortunately, much-needed programs like these are ignored by this budget proposal.”

“Equally horrifying is President Bush’s misguided promise to double funding for abstinence-only education programs. Such a move will leave our youth tragically uninformed about how to prevent sexually transmitted infections and about contraceptive options, and their ignorance will have devastating consequences. Abstinence-only programs have no proven record of success, yet this budget proposes to double federal funding to approximately $273 million for abstinence-only programming,” said Feldt.

“Not only does the president disregard the health of women and teens, but he obviously doesn’t care that a majority of American parents want quality comprehensive sex education for their children,” said Feldt. On January 29, 2004, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government released a study affirming popular support for comprehensive sex education, which offers information about contraceptive methods as well as abstinence. Kaiser found that only 15 percent of Americans think abstinence-only education belongs in schools.

In addition, the HHS budget proposal provides inadequate funding for the Title X family planning program —maintaining the same level from FY 2004. If Title X funding had simply kept pace with medical inflation since 1980, it would be funded at almost $600 million, yet funding now is only $278 million. This is clearly inadequate in light of a growing demand for subsidized preventive health services, at a time when 41 million Americans lack health insurance.

“The president also thumbs his nose at international family planning in the HHS proposal,” Feldt said. The budget request failed to allot funds for UNFPA, the world’s largest multilateral family planning program.