The groups are not supposed to give teens a religious message, even though meetings are often held in churches and speakers come from local congregations. Everyone's Not Doing It. In west-central Florida, the Pinellas Crisis Pregnancy Center, the Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA, the Diocese of St. Petersburg and the Boys and Girls Club of Pasco County already run federally funded programs that urge teens to stay virgins until they are married. Critics say Bush's move to fund more chastity education programs will siphon money from family-planning programs that offer medical care for poor women who have no health insurance. Carolyn Pardue, lobbyist for Planned Parenthood, said Bush's idea to redirect family planning money into teen chastity programs will prevent as many as 10,000 poor women from getting Pap smears, breast cancer screening, HIV tests and birth control counseling at their local county health department or women's clinic.
Family planning involves a lot of preventive care for women.
Some lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, say it's fine to teach teens that abstinence is a good option. But they are squeamish about banning counselors from even mentioning birth control, and they wonder what evidence exists to prove the programs work. The best health message we can give is monogamy in the context of marriage. If we were to mix that message with contraceptive use, it's confusing. The money was inserted into the federal budget without any debate.