The taxpayer-supported survey from 2008 found that around 70 percent of parents and their teenagers believed that teens should wait until marriage to have sex. Despite release of the study's summary and its highlight at two major public health conferences last year, the Department of Health and Human Services is withholding the full results according to Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Foundation.
"When a researcher [Dr. Lisa Rue] asked the HHS for the full results, she [was told it] is not public information and it has not been released to the public and so you don't have access to it," relates Huber. "[I find that] a little incredulous since it was shared publicly at two different venues."
Valerie Huber questions the motivation of the Obama administration, noting that "as of this past fiscal year, President Obama specifically put in his budget a desire to end all funding for abstinence education."
She hopes a change will be made soon. "We think that an administration that wants things to be open and clear should certainly do something different than the decision that is currently being exercised," Huber remarks.
In a short article [PDF] about her efforts to obtain a copy of the "National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents" (conducted by Abt Associates), Dr. Rue says that having been denied access twice by the Obama administration "leaves me to reflect on the role of cultural values with regard to prevention science."
Dr. Lisa Rue (Univ. of No. Colorado)The University of Northern Colorado assistant professor continues: "If we are truly interested in learning how to prevent two critical epidemics currently devastating our country (out-of-wedlock child bearing and sexually transmitted infections), then the nationally representative findings provide momentum and support for accessing cultural values of parents and children which promote optimal health choices for adolescents."
Echoing Huber's concern, Rue concludes with this statement: "...At this point in time, we must ask ourselves: Is this valuable process being suppressed by those who wish to repress American values in an effort to exert control over sex education offered in the United States?"
Huber is encouraging abstinence supporters to hold the Obama administration accountable by asking for the full report through a Freedom of Information Act request, which is available at the website for the National Abstinence Education Foundation.
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