Abstinence Only = Stupid Kids

One of those rare times I agree with Nick Kristof:

for all the carnage in President Bush's budget, one program is being showered with additional cash - almost three times as much as it got in 2001. It's "abstinence only" sex education, and the best research suggests that it will cost far more lives than the Clinton administration's much more notorious sex scandal.

Mr. Bush means well. But "abstinence only" is a misnomer that in practice is an assault on sex education itself. There's a good deal of evidence that the result will not be more young rosy-cheeked virgins - it will be more pregnancies, abortions, gonorrhea and deaths from AIDS.

Studies are showing us the phenomenal failure of abstinence-only education while the relative success of true sex education programs, all of which cover abstinence.

But just as with Condi's poor performance (and his own), Bush feels the biggest rewards go to those who have failed the most. Sigh.

Of course, what we really need to abstain from is Bush and his cronies.