US PRESIDENT Barack Obama faces a Republican backlash over his plan to scrap one of the most divisive policies left over from the Bush era: education programmes for teenagers that promote only sexual abstinence.
The decision, which emerged on Thursday night when details of Mr Obama's budget for next year was published, will see $138 million (€101 million) a year redirected from abstinence-only programmes to "evidence-based and promising teen pregnancy prevention programmes". It would eliminate $34 million in grants to states for abstinence education and a further $100 million spent by a federal department, the administration for children and families, which was in the vanguard of abstinence promotion.
In its place, Mr Obama is proposing a $110 million "teen prevention initiative" and a further $50 million to states for pregnancy prevention programmes.
The budget says the most positive results were achieved by programmes that "provide a range of services in addition to comprehensive sex education, such as after-school activities, academic support or service learning".
The announcement came in the same week as the launch of a high-profile campaign in favour of abstinence by Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol (18), whose pregnancy became an issue in the presidential election campaign.
She said: "Regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only way you can effectively - 100 per cent foolproof way - you can prevent pregnancy."
Mr Obama's decision to cut the funding reflects changing attitudes in the US to more positive positions on a host of social issues from abortion to gay marriage.
Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor and failed vice-presidential candidate, is hoping she can secure the party nomination to face Mr Obama in 2012, and Bristol's role in the abstinence campaign is linked to that. During the election campaign she insisted she was going to marry Levi Johnston, the father of her five-month-old baby Tripp, but they have split up.
One of the main critics of old-style Republicanism is Meghan McCain, daughter of presidential candidate John McCain. She wrote on the Daily Beast website: "Bristol Palin's new abstinence campaign shines a light on the Republican Party's unhealthy attitude about sex. Daughters of Republican politicians aren't expected to have sex, let alone enjoy it." - (Guardian service)