Under increased pressure abstinence-only advocates intensify campaign to protect their funding.

In April a nine-year $8 million congressionally mandated evaluation of federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage education programs found that these programs have no statistically significant beneficial impact on young people sexual behavior. In July when the Bush administration touted the 25% decline in the U.S. teen sexual activity rate between 1991 and 2005 in releasing a new report it was soon after revealed that all of the decline occurred by 2001 and that the rate has remained flat even as public dollars for abstinence-only education have grown exponentially. (Other research has credited improved contraceptive use for the bulk of the decline.) Faced with this latest evidence that abstinence-only-until-marriage programming is ineffective advocates are pursuing a major lobbying and public relations campaign to preserve the funding it receives. (excerpt)