The Center for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) is suing the Dept. of Health and Human Services for failing to respond to a request for information on federal abstinence-only and crisis-pregnancy center funding. (The complaint and exhibits are available online.)

So why is CREW trying to get info on both the Waxman Report and crisis pregnancy centers? Because these fake abortion clinics are getting federal dollars that are earmarked for abstinence-only education.

Currently, there are an estimated 2,300 to 3,500 CPCs currently operating in the US, while there are only 1,800 abortion clinics. ... Millions of dollars of federal and state-level abstinence-only funding is granted to CPCs each year. CPCs are also being granted government funding to purchase ultrasound machines and even to provide pregnancy support and reproductive health services, despite the fact they do not offer contraceptive services and the vast majority of CPCs are not medical clinics at all.

(Sidenote: Check out Legal Momentum's detailed report (PDF). on national crisis-pregnancy center chains.)

Enter Rep. Mark Souder, who is on a mission to discredit the Waxman Report -- which, you'll recall, drew widespread attention the misinformation and gender stereotyping rampant in abstinence-only programs. Souder released a report this week called "Abstinence and Its Critics."

In it, he makes the same old unsupported arguments that abstinence-only works, trots out the same old bunk statistics, and makes the same old distortions of polling data about what sort of sex-ed most parents would like to see. What he doesn't address are the Waxman Report's charges of gender stereotyping in abstinence-only curricula, which leads me to assume that he's probably all for messaging like "wear longer skirts, you sluts" and "boys can't control their urges."

Souder first surfaced on this issue back in May, when he managed to place abstinence-only advocates on a CDC conference panel about STDs. He's now running for re-election and the Cook Report recently downgraded his race from a "solid" to "likely" chance he'll be reelected. The Republicans had to start giving him some money to buy ads. Clearly he expects to gain some political ground with the timely release of his anti-Waxman Report.

Focus on the Family is already fellating Souder for his report, calling him a "defender of life and purity." I think "defender of gender stereotyping and teen pregnancy" is probably more accurate.

Thanks to 24-hour feminists Madeline and Ashley for your research.

1 Comments

November 3, 2006 3:33 PM

[0+]  Nancy in NYC said:

Melanie Sloan and Naomi Seligmann of CREW are national fucking heroes. (They also broke the Foley scandal.) Show them some love this December and write 'em a check.

Thanks to the Feministing folks for staying on this story.

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