Saying a sexual abstinence program has been effective in reducing teenage birth rates among girls in the program, several state legislators and other supporters are planning to raise private funds to keep the five-year program going.

The need for private funding, which would have to be channeled through the state to attract a $1 million federal grant, is the result of Governor Napolitano’s June 17 line-item veto of more than $800,000 for the Abstinence Only Initiative and its funding source in the current fiscal 2004 budget.

“I am vetoing the funding for abstinence education,” the governor wrote in her veto message to the Legislature, “including the proposed use of the state Lottery fund as a funding source, because, as the Goldwater Institute recently concluded, government has proven to be an ineffective communicator of the abstinence message, and because the state lottery fund is better spent elsewhere.”

The program was funded through the Department of Health Services (DHS).

At a news conference Oct. 27, Sen. Mark Anderson, R-Dist. 18, released a report on a five-year evaluation of the abstinence program that he said shows the program should be continued.

“I think if you look at the overall report, it’s very clear the program is effective,” Mr. Anderson said.

Although a report on the first four years of the program concluded that the program had not changed participants’ “sexual behavior,” the fifth-year report states: “The follow-up study shows that virgins had a 95 per cent abstinence success rate, and non-virgins had a 52 per cent abstinence success rate.”

Regarding teenage births, the report said, “For 2001, live birth rates among participants were lower than comparable state rates, [and] some of the difference appears to be attributable to the program.”

The report also stated, “Subsequent years of data should be examined to determine if this is an isolated or sustained program impact.”

LeCroy & Milligan Associates, Inc., a consulting firm in Tucson that specializes in program evaluation, conducted the studies for the Department of Health Services. Its four-year report, which the firm said was based on limited sampling, showed no difference in the birth rate among program participants and the general female population in Arizona.

Since 1998, the program has reached more than 123,000 individuals, most of them teenagers and pre-teens, the Milligan report said. At the height of its implementation, the program was conducted in 175 middle and high schools, 42 detention and residential facilities and 32 community and after-school settings.

Teen Pregnancy Rates

Cathi Herrod of the Center for Arizona Policy told the news conference that 33 teenagers in Arizona get pregnant each day.

The teen pregnancy rate dropped 9 per cent in 2001 and 29 per cent since 1994, the state Office of Women’s and Children’s Health reported in December 2002. “We had something to do with that,” Sara Rumann of the Department of Health Services said at the time, “but we can’t take full credit. Birth control has had an impact.”

The decline in the teenage birth rate provides “encouraging news to those behind Arizona’s abstinence until marriage campaign,” a DES news release said.

From 1999 through mid-2002, the abstinence program spent an average of $3 million per year in state and federal funding, much of it for advertising campaigns. The funds were cut to $1 million and, without adequate funding, Ms. Rumann said in an earlier interview, “I would anticipate the rates [of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases] could go up slightly.”

In the year 2000 Arizona’s birth rate of 67.6 per 1,000 births for 15-19 year-old girls was higher than the national rate of 48.7 per 1,000 births. Of the 84,985 births to females in 2000, 12,189 were to girls aged 19 or younger and 39 per cent of those were births to unmarried girls — higher than the U.S. average of 23.3 per cent, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services Web site. Children born to teen mothers are twice as likely to drop out of high school, twice as likely to have a child themselves before age 20 and more likely to be out of work and school in their late teens and early 20s, the DHS Web site says.

Lawmakers Wants To ‘Correct’ Veto Mistake

Senate President Ken Bennett, R-Dist. 1, said, “One of the most disappointing elements of the budget this last year was that these dollars for this very important program got caught up in some politics and were vetoed. Hopefully, with this report now being released, it will provide some impetus and opportunities to reverse that — to correct that mistake.”

Mr. Anderson has asked Ms. Napolitano to consider having the state handle the paperwork necessary to apply for a federal grant if the private funds are raised. The governor said on Oct. 27 she had not reviewed the five-year report and would not “prejudge” Mr. Anderson’s request.

“Ultimately, we’re trying to get kids through a period of time in their lives until they’re married,” Mr. Anderson said. “It doesn’t have to be an eternal message they carry with them until they’re 90.”

The abstinence program does have its critics. Planned Parenthood of Southern Arizona hailed the veto last June.

“We are delighted that the Governor has vetoed the diversion of scarce state resources to an ineffective, ideologically based abstinence-only program,” said Jonathan Pinkney-Baird, vice president of Planned Parenthood of Southern Arizona.

“While abstinence messages are important, they need to be taught as part of a medically accurate sexuality education,” Mr. Pinkney-Baird wrote in a press release. —