http://handsoffourovaries.com/images/beesontestimony.pdf
2 Courts and the Law: Restore Constitutional Balance by Ending Judicial Activism
The Issue
"Judicial activism" occurs when judges impose their own policy preferences in deciding cases. This is unfair to all parties concerned because the role of the judge is to apply the law as enacted, not to create law. It is the legislatures, state and federal, that enact laws. Citizens, in turn, elect the members of the legislatures. Therefore, when judges engage in judicial activism, they usurp the role of the legislators, whose job it is to decide disputed, difficult policy issues. Those legislators, in turn, are directly accountable to those who elected them. Thus, judicial activism undermines our representative democracy.
What helps make this possible is the fact that legislators across the country, in Congress and the states, have abdicated their duties as members of a coequal branch of government to resist rogue judges and their activist rulings.
The chief modern example of judicial activism is Roe v. Wade, where seven members of the Supreme Court invented a right to abortion that was nowhere found in the Constitution. Justice Byron White, who dissented in the case, said that the majority of the Court had engaged "not in constitutional interpretation, but in the unrestrained imposition of its own, extra constitutional value preferences." Note that such a decision ignores the will of the people as expressed in the words of the Constitution; indeed, it expresses contempt for the people. There are other examples of judicial activism, the most notorious being Dred Scott v. Sandford, which was a catalyst of the Civil War.
All too often the courts engage in judicial activism, upending the will of the people on important social and economic issues. FRC believes judges have an obligation to interpret the law as it is written and not to impose their own policy preferences.
In the United States today, judicial confirmation hearings are often hotly contested affairs. The reason is that liberal activists seek to impose their own policy views through the unelected judiciary, rather than through the elected legislatures. Thus, they seek to confirm only liberal judicial activists. This leads them to oppose judges with the proper judicial philosophy, i.e., one of judicial restraint.
Proposals
The president should nominate, and Congress should confirm, only federal judges who • are committed to the text and clear meaning of the Constitution and laws.
Only those who have a record of supporting judicial restraint should be appointed or • elected to judgeships at the state level.
Congress should exercise its power under Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution to • limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts.
When judges violate their oath by engaging in egregious judicial activism, Congress, • state legislators, and the people should exercise their power to impeach and remove them from office.
3Reform the Nation’s Prison System
The Issue
Over two million Americans—one of every 100 adults—are behind bars today, far more than in any other country. Offenders are often sentenced for years to overcrowded prisons where they are exposed to the horrors of violence (including rape), isolation from family and friends, and despair. Instead of working on the outside to repay their victims and support their families, many non-dangerous offenders sit idle in prison—warehoused with little preparation to make better choices when they return to the free world. While violent offenders certainly need to be removed from society, more than half of all prisoners are incarcerated for non-violent crimes. Low-risk offenders sentenced to prison often return worse than they went in, and become repeat offenders.
Sentences should be tailored to fit the actual facts of the crime. Mandatory sentences impose arbitrary punishment that often far outweighs the harm done by the crime. Sending low-risk offenders to prison makes it impossible for them to support their families, both financially and emotionally.
Research shows that when returning inmates have a supportive family they are more likely to find a job, less likely to use drugs, and less likely to engage in criminal activities. Studies also show that children of inmates who are able to visit with their parents have increased cognitive skills, improved academic self-esteem, and greater self control, and that they switch schools much less often. The improvement of the children has an amazing impact on the incarcerated parent, too, with significantly reduced recidivism of the parent after release. Current prison policies that make it difficult to keep a family together during incarceration must be reformed.
Faith-based programs within prisons have dramatically improved the prospects of prisoners when they return to society. Graduates of one such program, run by Prison Fellowship International, had a recidivism rate of only eight percent, far below the national average of 50 percent.
Family Research Council supports reforming prison policies so that families are strengthened during and after incarceration—which will make our communities safer.
Proposals
Alternative punishments should allow some non-violent offenders to remain at home • while they work to repay their victims and support their families. Inmates should not be routinely imprisoned hundreds of miles from their homes, which makes family visitation far more difficult.
Prisons should have visiting hours on evenings and weekends to facilitate visits by • working spouses.
Contact between incarcerated parents and their children should be encouraged. •
Prisoners should be able to exercise their religious freedom by participating in faith-based • training programs.
Addicts should be assigned to drug courts that specialize in dealing with addicted • defendants and have the specialized expertise to hold offenders accountable and require that they participate in effective treatment for their addictions.
4 Culture and Media: Promote Academic Freedom in Science Education
The Issue
Critical analysis of scientific theories is essential to the progress of science. No scientific theory is immune from critique, and every scientific theory must be constantly compared with newly discovered evidence and with competing theories offering alternative explanations for the evidence observed in nature. The history of science is full of examples of widely accepted theories which later collapsed and were replaced by new theories under the weight of the evidence.
To exclude any scientific theory from such critical analysis is an assault upon science, not a defense of it. Students of science, whether in public schools or at the college level, are receiving a deficient science education if they are not taught about the importance of such critical analysis, and if they are forbidden to examine evidence in support of theories which conflict with the dominant paradigm.
Unfortunately, much of science education in America today is marred by practices which violate the principles of critical analysis and academic freedom described above. This is particularly true in the case of the controversial issues of evolution and global warming. Currently, the field of biology is dominated by those who believe in Darwinism—the theory that all life on Earth has evolved through descent from a common ancestor by natural selection acting on random mutations. The field of climate science is dominated by those who believe the Earth is currently experiencing human-induced global warming which will be catastrophic in its impact unless stopped.
Those who dissent from these scientific orthodoxies are too often persecuted—ironically, just as fiercely as scientists of the past were persecuted for violating religious orthodoxy. In the case of evolution, defenders of the Darwinist status quo seek to discount the scientific contributions of any critics of Darwinism who profess to believe in God, and attribute religious motivations to even the most scientific of critiques. This motivation, in turn, is treated as disqualifying such critiques from the public education system because of the "separation of church and state" (even though the openly professed atheism of some prominent Darwinists is not seen as equally disqualifying).
In the case of "climate change," it is not hostility to religion as much as defense of the political environmental movement which motivates attacks on those who dissent from the orthodoxy of catastrophic, human-induced global warming.
Proposals
States should adopt "academic freedom" laws which would:
Ensure that students are taught to critically analyze existing scientific theories. •
Protect faculty members from being fired, denied tenure, or otherwise professionally • punished or disadvantaged for sharing with students evidence critical of existing scientific theories.
Protect students who master the material that is taught from being punished or • disadvantaged, in terms of grades or otherwise, for holding or expressing views in contradiction to the dominant existing scientific theory.
5 Protect Children and the Public from Pornography and Media Indecency
The Issue
Today’s media and entertainment technologies present a serious challenge to American families. Magazines, music, motion pictures, advertisements, and even video games are distribution channels for material that is morally damaging and in many cases sexually graphic. Television and the Internet present perhaps the most serious concern.
The Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") received 1.4 million citizen complaints of indecency in 2004, the year Janet Jackson had a "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl, and in 2005 more than 500 radio and television shows drew complaints. These are "public" airwaves that belong to the American people, and the people have the right to demand that their airwaves be suitable for all audiences. For that reason, Congress has granted the FCC appropriate powers to create and enforce regulations to control obscene, indecent, or profane programming.
Pornography is spreading like a plague as the Internet moves it from the margins of our culture to the mainstream. Worst of all, it is stealing the innocence of our children. A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics showed that 42 percent of children ages 10 to 17 had been exposed to online pornography in the past year; 66 percent of the exposure was "unwanted." Hard-core pornography, or "obscenity," is illegal, as is any pornography depicting children; this is true whether the material resides on the Internet or elsewhere. We applaud the Department of Justice for redoubling its efforts against child predators and child pornography online, but more must be done to combat hard-core "obscene" pornography, which also threatens the health and lives of children and their families. Sadly, the federal courts have blocked all efforts by Congress to criminalize the distribution of less-extreme pornography to children online. As a result, porn producers like Playboy and Penthouse exploit our children on the Internet with impunity.
Proposals
Vigorously enforce the laws against broadcasting indecent and profane material and • increase the fines and penalties for violations.
Vigorously enforce all existing laws against obscenity and child pornography. •
Increase Department of Justice money and manpower specifically for adult obscenity • prosecutions.
Close the legal loophole which allows the peddling of less-extreme pornography to • children online.
6Provide Freedom of Choice to Cable and Satellite TV Customers
The Issue
While there are many examples of worthwhile American television programming, many programs offend large segments of the population due to their sexual or violent content. Many people do not want to see such programming, nor do they want their children to see it. The vast majority of Americans obtain TV programming from cable or satellite TV companies. While broadcast channels are subject to the Federal Communications Commission’s loosely enforced indecency regulations, a great deal of undesirable programming is still broadcast and also carried via cable. Non-broadcast cable programming is not subject to the FCC regulations, and its character has declined even more precipitously in recent years. Simultaneously, the cost of cable TV has increased faster than the rate of inflation as more channels are added to basic packages.
Going forward, telecommunications technologies that carry various types of media content will proliferate. FRC believes that no telecommunications service provider should be allowed to require a customer to receive any particular media content as a precondition for receipt of a telecommunications service, and no customer should be required to pay for media content that he or she does not wish to purchase.
Some argue that such "cable choice" constitutes unjustified government regulation. Such arguments overlook the fact that cable companies do not operate in a competitive environment. Typically, cable franchises were established by local governments years ago – not by market forces. Entry into the market is difficult if permitted at all.
Unlike water and electricity – products sold by public utilities with similar special access to residences – cable television sells a product that can yield profound ethical and moral consequences. What we watch affects our thinking, beliefs, and actions. Consequently, many people now avoid large numbers of cable channels while still paying for them. When you are at an airport magazine stand and purchase a newspaper you aren’t forced to buy Playboy, yet cable TV channels are foisted upon Americans in that manner. This marketing arrangement must end.
Proposal
Congress should enact legislation authorizing the FCC to guarantee "cable choice" • or "a la carte programming" options for cable subscribers. Under such arrangements, cable customers would not be required to receive, nor to pay for, channels they do not want.
7Family Empowerment: Make Family-Friendly Tax Cuts Permanent
The Issue
When President Bush introduced his first round of tax relief in 2001, he had planned for the cuts to be permanent. However, a divided Congress insisted the tax cuts be staggered and temporary, with the result being a large scheduled tax hike in 2011.
If the cuts are not made permanent, come 2011, American families will face one of the largest tax increases in history; average taxes would rise $1,800 per taxpayer, and 48 million married couples will face an average hike of $3,007, with many paying more than if they merely cohabited. A family of four earning $40,000 would see an increase of over $2,300 in taxes. If the President’s tax relief is allowed to expire at the end of 2010, Americans will pay about $280 billion more in taxes each year.2
Although partially addressed in previous legislation, the "marriage penalty," whereby some couples pay higher taxes than if they were unmarried, is still a problem for some taxpayers. The "Alternative Minimum Tax" (AMT), originally targeted at a handful of millionaires, now strikes a growing number of middle-class families.
Tax breaks specifically targeted at families with children serve the country’s best interest in more ways than one. More dollars in parents’ pocketbooks means greater investment in and better material care for the next generation from those who are most attuned to children’s needs: their parents. Such provisions also encourage childbirth itself—something crucial in the long run to the solvency of Social Security, which is ultimately an inter-generational transfer from the working generation to retirees.
Finally, the tax code is too complex. Every year over 1,000 targeted tax cuts, for both itemizers and non-itemizers, are introduced, and many of them pass. Beneficiaries range from buyers of fishing poles and Christmas trees to whaling captains. We need a tax code that will allow Americans to do their own tax returns without the help of professionals.
Proposals
The tax relief provisions passed in 2001, 2003 and 2004 must be made permanent. Top • among these provisions are the child tax credit, death tax repeal and marriage tax penalty relief.
Congress should increase the child tax credit to at least $2,500 per child. Congress • should also lower the minimum earned income eligibility for any portion of the tax credit to $10,000 and make that minimum permanent. Congress should annually increase the amount of the child tax credit and the maximum thresholds for receiving the full child tax credit by the annual percentage increase in the consumer price index (CPI), while not allowing the tax credit to drop below $2,500 and the maximum thresholds to drop below current levels should the CPI decrease.
The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) should be rolled back, indexed, or repealed • altogether.
8 Eliminate Marriage Penalties in Federal Law
The Issue
In the last century, welfare and tax codes and social benefit programs were put in place with no consideration for their impact on marriage and married couples with children.
Over the last decade, much attention has been paid to the "marriage tax penalty" paid by some middle- and upper-income couples, who find that their total federal tax burden when married is higher than when they were single. Tax changes in recent years have reduced the size of this "penalty" and the number of couples who pay it, but there is still no assurance that couples who marry will not be disadvantaged.
On the benefits side, there is a marriage penalty with respect to Social Security. Senior citizens who were previously married and widowed and receive "survivor’s" benefits from Social Security find those benefits cut off if they choose to remarry. This has led many of them to choose to cohabit with a new partner rather than marry. But to extend some of the "benefits" of marriage, some states and localities in the country have created "domestic partnership" programs that are open both to same-sex couples and to opposite-sex seniors over 62. This fact has undermined efforts to reserve marriage and its benefits to unions of one man and one woman.
However, marriage penalties strike the poor on both the benefit and tax sides. Because of the principle of "progressivity" embedded in both welfare and tax policies, the poor suffer a drastic reduction of their subsidies while their taxes increase at a rate faster than their income. As a result of this and cultural factors, cohabitation, not marriage, has become the norm among the poor, leading frequently to serial cohabitation.3 Programs feeding the marriage penalty most include EITC, TANF, food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid, SCHIP and child care. According to C. Eugene Steuerle, the country’s leading expert on the marriage penalty, "Most households with children who earn low or moderate incomes (under $40,000) are significantly penalized."4
Proposals
Permit married couples to pay taxes based on "income splitting," whereby half of the • couple’s joint income is attributed to each spouse, thus ensuring that they will not pay higher taxes than two single people with the same combined income.
Eliminate the marriage penalty for Social Security recipients. •
Set an upper marginal tax rate (the effective rate of tax paid on each • additional dollar of income) for the poor (presently as high as 89%) that does not exceed the marginal tax rate for upper-income people (33%).
3 Andrew Cherlin and Paula Fomby, "A Closer Look at Changes in Children’s Living Arrangements in Low-Income Families: Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study," Working Paper 02-0 1, Johns Hopkins University, February 2002.
4 See C. Eugene Steuerle Testimony Before the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia Committee on Appropriations U.S. Senate, May 3, 2006.
9 Reform Health Care through Consumer Choice
The Issue
The cost and availability of health care and health insurance are perennial issues in the policy debate because health care has become such a significant part of the family budget. Although much of the debate centers on access to health care for the uninsured, issues of choice, conscience protection, and cost control must also be considered in any health care reform.
Today 80 percent of that health care is purchased by employers. Our country’s heavy reliance on Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance (ESHI) distorts the market for health care and health insurance. It limits access to health insurance for those who are unemployed, self-employed, or employed by small businesses that cannot afford health coverage. It drives up costs by insulating the employee from market decisions based on direct knowledge of the cost of insurance or the cost of actual health care services. It is not "portable," meaning the employee cannot retain the same health plan when changing jobs, and this distorts people’s employment decisions. Finally, because ESHI usually does not allow employees to choose among health care plans with different coverage options, it may in some cases force them to subsidize abortion and other morally objectionable procedures, as well as high-risk lifestyles, with their premium dollars.
The country is unlikely to move away from its reliance on ESHI, however, as long as ESHI continues to receive more favorable tax treatment than insurance purchased by individuals or private membership organizations. Currently, both employer and employee contributions to employment-based health plans are tax-free, whereas no tax deduction or credit is available for the private purchase of insurance for any but the self-employed.
Another major distortion in the market for health insurance is the fact that interstate marketing of health insurance is forbidden. This is a major barrier to consumer choice and competition, because in most states one or (more commonly) two big insurance companies control 80 to 90 percent of the market. Permitting marketing of insurance across state lines would result in bigger customer pools, thus permitting the marketing of many options in insurance which, in turn, will drive down costs.
Proposals
Federal law should be changed to give individuals and heads of families a tax deduction • for the purchase of health insurance that is equal in value to the tax break currently given only to the employer.
Low-income families should receive a dollar-for-dollar refundable tax credit that would • suffice to cover most of the cost of private health insurance.
Religious, civic, and fraternal organizations should be permitted to market insurance • plans, allowing their members to benefit both from the risk pooling of group coverage and underwriting based on the lower levels of high-risk personal behavior in such groups.
Congress should exercise its interstate commerce powers to permit interstate marketing • of insurance.
10Protect Parental Rights in Education
The Issue
Parents are a child’s first teachers and make a tremendous investment in all aspects of their children’s lives. However, many parents are increasingly frustrated at a lack of control over their children’s education. They do not wish to send their children to failing public schools beset by low test scores, and where they may be exposed to rising school violence. If parents choose to enroll their children in a private or religious school, they are saddled with the additional financial burden of paying tuition in addition to taxes to support the public school system. Experience has shown that education tax credits (refundable so that low-income parents with no tax liability can also benefit) succeed in providing assistance to families that would otherwise be unable to send their children to the school of their choice.
In addition, many parents are concerned that their children may be taught values in public schools that are contrary to the moral values and religious teachings taught in the home. So-called "comprehensive" sex education programs, for example, include teaching about the use of condoms and other subjects that many parents find morally objectionable. Some schools do not notify parents before controversial sexual topics are discussed to provide them with an opportunity to opt their children out of discussions they deem to be inappropriate or unhealthy.
Some school health clinics also offer services that parents find objectionable, such as distributing condoms and other forms of contraception, and reportedly even providing information and referring students for abortions without the parent’s knowledge.
In a related issue, Virginia has become the first state to mandate the HPV vaccine for sixth-grade girls. Vaccinations should only be required for diseases that are usually communicable in a school setting. However, HPV is sexually transmitted, and is not contracted through normal school activities.
Proposals
Congress should pass the Children’s Hope Act, which encourages states to enact their • own state scholarship tax credit by adding a federal credit in such cases.
Schools should teach abstinence until marriage and fidelity within marriage as the • expected standard of sexual behavior and the surest way of preventing sexually transmitted disease and out-of-wedlock pregnancies. However, states or school districts that insist on offering so-called "comprehensive" (i.e., contraceptive and condom-based) sex education should, at a minimum, allow parents to opt their children out of such classes and give such children an abstinence-only alternative.
School health clinics should not dispense contraceptive drugs or condoms, refer students • for abortions, or give advice regarding sexual matters without service-specific parental notification and consent.
Schools should not require HPV vaccination as a condition for school attendance.•
11Human Life: End Forced Taxpayer Subsidization of Abortion and Abortion Providers
The Issue
Family Research Council believes that unborn human life should be legally protected at all stages of development. The Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision declaring a constitutional right to abortion was wrongly decided, and if justice is to be secured the Supreme Court can and must promptly reverse the error it committed through this exercise of raw judicial power. We will continue to work for an end to abortion, but there are also incremental steps we can take to begin rolling back the "culture of death" and replacing it with a culture of life.
American taxpayers who have conscientious objections to abortion currently have no choice but to subsidize abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood with their federal and (in most cases) state tax dollars. Planned Parenthood alone is receiving more than $300 million in FY 2008 from the federal government. Almost a third of this allocation comes from Title X family planning grants. The federal government established Title X funding in 1970 to support family planning projects, but with this critical stipulation: "None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning."
President Reagan clarified this provision with regulations which clearly stated that Title X recipients could not refer for abortion or combine family planning services with abortion services. President George H.W. Bush defended these regulations, which were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Rust v. Sullivan (500 U.S. 173) in 1991. When President Clinton took office, he rescinded these regulations and implemented new regulations, unsupported by statutory law, that require recipients of Title X funding to provide abortion referrals. Moreover, these regulations allow for the colocation of abortion facilities with their affiliated Title X family planning clinics—in some cases utilizing the same waiting rooms, staff, and equipment.
Congress, however, has sought to prevent government funding of abortion and other practices destructive of innocent human life through a large number of pro-life provisions that are annually renewed as amendment riders on federal appropriations bills. Taxpayers should not be forced to expend their financial resources on the purposeful destruction and abuse of innocent human life, at any stage of development.
Proposals
The president should rescind the Clinton regulations and re-institute the Reagan • regulations of Title X funding. This will have the effect of withholding about a third of the federal dollars currently allocated to abortion providers.
Congress should prohibit distribution of federal funds to institutions or organizations that • provide abortions, in light of American taxpayers’ conscientious objections to abortion.
State and local governments should likewise cut off all funding for abortion providers. •
The "pro-life riders" that have been added to annual appropriations bills should be made • permanent. These include restrictions on federal funds for any and all services and items pertaining to abortion, whether the funds are for domestic or international organizations; restrictions on federal funds for human embryo research and destruction, including cloning; restrictions on patenting of human organisms; and restrictions on destruction of human life through euthanasia or assisted suicide.
12Require Abortion Facilities to Meet Basic Medical Standards
The Issue
Abortion remains one of the least regulated medical procedures in the United States, often resulting in unsanitary and unsafe conditions. Substandard medical practice and disregard for basic health and safety standards have caused untold numbers of American women to suffer injuries, infertility, and even death. Abortion advocates callously equate "women’s health" with access to abortion, but often demonstrate little concern for the safety of the procedures and drug regimens, the competence of the doctors and the facilities performing the invasive surgeries and prescribing medical abortions, or the overall reproductive health of their clients, many of whom are adolescents. Evidence of substandard conditions in many abortion clinics demonstrates the need for individual states to pass comprehensive abortion clinic regulations.
All medical procedures in the United States are constrained by governing medical ethics, including the bedrock principle of informed consent. Abortion facilities continue to deny women full disclosure of the psychological and physical effects of surgical and medically induced abortion. Evidence is mounting, from scientific research studies worldwide, that there is an association between induced abortion and preterm birth, as well as an increased risk of substance abuse and suicide. Psychiatric and psychological professional groups are being forced to re-evaluate the destructive nature of abortion to women’s health. The failure to provide information concerning the risks of abortion for women’s reproductive and overall health represents a major gap in the promotion of true health care.
Proposals
States should adopt and enforce appropriate medical standards for abortion facilities like • those required for other ambulatory surgical facilities. These should include standards concerning: sterile surgical practices and environment; proximity to emergency care facilities; surgical facility equipment; adequate equipment and trained personnel for neonatal resuscitation in clinics performing late-term abortions; and mandatory physician ultrasound to determine the timing of the pregnancy and aid in care.
Require informed consent. State laws should be enacted and enforced to require that • abortion facilities provide information to the woman and parents of minors, with 48 hours notice in advance of abortion procedures, concerning the following: prenatal/fetal development (including mandatory provision of live ultrasound to the client); the short-and long-term physical effects and complications of induced abortion (including risk to future healthy pregnancies); and the psychological effects of induced abortion for women and others involved (such as husbands or partners, other family, and medical staff).
Require screening to ensure that a woman seeking an abortion is not doing so under • coercion by any other individual.
13 Promote Positive and Healthy Human Sexuality
The Issue
FRC supports healthy marriage and family formation education for youth in conjunction with abstinence-until-marriage education. Risk avoidance or abstinence messaging serves as the best primary prevention approach for those who both have and have not been sexually active outside of marriage. Sexual abstinence improves adolescents’ development and enhances their ability to achieve short-term and long-term life goals.
A sexually transmitted disease (STD) and infection (STI) epidemic currently afflicts adolescents, affecting death rates and reproductive health outcomes. Out-of-wedlock birthrates continue to rise to the point where more than one in three American children are born without a married mother and father. Abstinence education mutually reinforces the risk avoidance message given to youth regarding drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and violence. Programs based on a presumption of adolescent sexual activity have clearly failed to reduce associated risks or decrease STI rates and left youth laden with psychological, physical, and emotional fallout.
Every state makes it illegal to have sex with a young person below a certain minimum age, regardless of whether or not the young person "consents." Children and young adolescents do not have the physiological, biological, and emotional development to cope with sex and its consequences. Age of consent laws exist also to protect children and adolescents from sexual abuse and exploitation by an adult, including one in a position of authority. Those who prey on children fuel the abhorrent and destructive businesses of youth prostitution, sex trafficking, and child pornography. Most facilities providing confidential reproductive health services for minors are poorly monitored for violation of age of consent laws and statutory rape reporting.
The public health primary prevention message based on behavior modification (practicing sexual abstinence) must be jointly presented with the promotion of healthy marriage and family formation education in order to make sense to a generation of young people growing up in non-intact families. The growth of stronger families depends upon the values, practices, and prevention messages presented to the young.
