Sex Ed and Politics
Presumably she's as nonchalant about Obama. And she may need that confidence, given the reviews that are coming in on the success of abstinence programs. In 2007, a congressionally ordered 10-year study of four popular abstinence-education curricula found they had no effect on the age when young people started having sex. Seventeen states have decided to reject abstinence-only education grants. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives voted to eviscerate the abstinence-education requirements of President Bush's African HIV/AIDS-prevention program.
But these setbacks may not affect the funding Unruh is after. In the Capitol, the dollars for domestic abstinence education are virtually always included in huge, multifaceted, multibillion-dollar pieces of legislation, like the Welfare Reform Act and the Omnibus Appropriations Act. As a result, members of Congress are rarely forced to vote yes or no on individual programs. The presidential candidates, however, have chosen their sides. Senator Obama has put himself firmly in the so-called abstinence-plus camp by sponsoring legislation such as the Communities of Color Teen Pregnancy Prevention Act, which "encourage[s] young people to postpone sexual activity [and] provide[s]...medically accurate [contraceptive] information, for [those] who are already sexually active or are at risk of becoming sexually active." Senator McCain, on the other hand, supports abstinence-only education, and has spoken at pro-purity events while campaigning for president. But Unruh's agenda does not rely on elections going her way. It's cash she's after, and she feels certain she can get it, whoever occupies the White House. "If we can't get abstinence money, we'll apply for education grants or antidrug funds," she says. "I know how Washington works now."
Unruh has spent more than a decade acquiring her D.C. expertise. She is a familiar face to her contacts. But there are signs that newer, more dulcet tones are being sought to espouse the abstinence brand on the talking-head circuit.
"Leslee no longer seems to be the face and voice they use for their movement," says Martha Kempner, vice president of communications for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a national advocacy group that was founded 44 years ago to "promote sexuality education for people of all ages." Increasingly, when Kempner and her staff are invited to debate sex education on TV and radio shows, they find themselves facing not Unruh but Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, which began operating in 2006. One of the specific goals listed on its Web site is to "rebrand the abstinence message to provide positive representation in the public square."
They may be referring to Unruh's tendency toward hyperbole. For example, in a May 2007 appearance on Fox News to discuss a birth control pill that suppresses menstruation, she told host Neil Cavuto, "This is a real war on women and war on children. We do not need big pharma, National Abortion Rights Action League, who have had a war on children and on babies, to now come in with another drug and to play God!...wanting us, women, who are feminine and have fertility and it's something to celebrate, wanting us to be like men -- c'mon!"
