The New York Times‘ editorial page had a nice pick-up yesterday: With the end of the year, both the health care reform bill and a massive omnibus spending bill are making their way through the Senate. The spending bill would end funding for the Dept. of Health of Human Services to give states grant money for abstinence-only education program. A million-bazillion studies indicate that abstinence-only education doesn’t work in increasing abstinence, preventing teen pregnancies or decreasing sexually transmitted diseases (It might, however, work in getting kids out of Phy. Ed.).

Yet the Times glumly notes that Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch slipped in an amendment to the health care reform bill re-instating $50 million for abstinence-only program. I agree with the Times that Hatch’s amendment deserves to die in the House-Senate conference meeting on the health care bill. But Hatch is continuing a tradition here: abstinence-only education was born out of an 11th-hour amendment to the massive 1996 Welfare Reform bill. Hey, what’s the point of enacting historic, domestic legislation if you can’t slip in money for a polarizing sex education program?

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