No Good In California
With so much to disagree upon,
at least we can all agree on one thing; the best way to handle teen pregnancy
and abortion is to avoid it altogether! And the best way to do that is abstinence
until marriage. It’s 100% effective.
For the first time in our history we have a President and Congress
that agree with this logic and are putting their beliefs into action for the
good of our country. They understand that the cost of allowing our young people
to make healthy choices - be it abstinence from drugs, abstinence from alcohol,
abstinence from smoking - is measured financially to the taxpayer as well
as in human lives.
This administration has supported funding for abstinence programs
to reach the youth of America - it is in the form of Title V Block Grants
to the State governments and in grants made available to grassroots faith-based
and community organizations. These grassroots grants are called SPRANS or
Special Programs for Regional and National Significance. Currently an increase
is proposed to $65 million in Federal funding in these programs. It’s
much less than we need, but a great start.
Ultimately we should be spending dollar for dollar for Healthy
Choices education for every student what we spend on “condoms to every
student” programs. If that means cutting the unhealthy choices funding
or increasing ours, it needs to be equal for the good of all our youth.
So far that all sounds good for us, right? Well, even though
we have made progress, we cannot turn our backs for a moment. No good is reaching
California - we only receive $.06 per person of that funding while the national
average should be $.35 per person and some states are getting as much as $1.55
per person. Even Guam and the Virgin Islands are getting funding!
And the Administration and our Congressmen are doing NOTHING.
The majority of our nation’s youth sit in California with 35 million
people and they are being ignored.
The SPRANS review system has had problems the last couple years
with bias and unfair review practices and could explain this severe inequity
in distribution. $.06 per person is NOT OK!
Solutions: The Department of Health and Human Services needs
to have the grant process moved to a proper department than might better handle
it.
Funds for California need to be disbursed immediately.
Dana Serrano Chisholm
can be reached at DanaChisholm@cox.net.