HEALTH CARE

4 Parents Is 4 Ignorance

The website 4parents.gov, one of the latest "public education campaigns" launched by the Bush administration, claims to "provide parents with the information, tools and skills they need to help their teens make the healthiest choices." Maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services, the website seeks to encourage "parents to talk frankly [with teens] about sensitive topics like sex and relationships." However, the website fails miserably in these goals and nearly 150 public health and advocacy groups have signed a letter to HHS Secretary Leavitt to "express their deep concern." Accepting that parents ought to be "the primary sexuality educators of their children," the groups chide HHS because, rather than giving parents "the accurate information and resources they need," the website "relies on fear to motivate and contains many errors and biases that undermine its intent of encouraging parent-child communication around sex and sexuality."

PROMOTING ABSTINENCE AT ALL COSTS: The section entitled "What if Your Teen Has Already Had Sex?" includes value-laden, abstinence only advice: "Tell them it's not too late to stop having sex, that it's never too late to make healthy choices. They are worth it!" The section provides "no resources or suggestions" for parents with children who "are not 'worth it,'" i.e. those who make the decision to remain sexually active. For those parents, 4parents.gov instead "contains inaccurate information regarding the effectiveness of condoms, as well as the transmission and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases." By spreading misleading information, 4parents.gov succumbs to the mistaken belief that "giving young people negative information about contraception will encourage them not to have sexual intercourse, when all it will do is encourage them not to have contraception."

'ANTI-CHOICE OVERTONES': According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, pregnancy begins at implantation. This is the "medically accepted definition" of the term and has been used in prior instances by the Department of Health and Human Services. Yet, the 4parents.gov website asserts that pregnancy begins at the time of fertilization of the egg, a definition commonly used in, and preferred by, the anti-choice community. This "radical change in the definition of pregnancy … flies in the face of the medical community [and] shows a blatant disregard for science." The two different definitions of pregnancy have been linked to the recent attack on patients' rights. Another example of 4parents.gov's "anti-choice overtones" is the website's statement that "'abortion complications' are one of the major reasons for infertility." In reality, "less than one percent of women who have an abortion experience a major complication, and there is no evidence of infertility among the vast majority of women who've had abortions."

CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND: 4parents.gov not only "contains a distressing lack of information for parents of sexually abused and assaulted youth" but also "fails to address the unique needs or parents with LGBTQ children," instead using "outdated and alienating language and ideas." In a section on sexual orientation, the website stresses that parents need to address the issue "within the context of their own value system" to help "impressionable" adolescents who are "certain to hear about alternative lifestyles" from the increasing visibility of the issue "in public debate, the media, and often, in school curriculum." If parents suspect their child is gay, they are told to "consider seeing a family therapist" but one "who shares [their] values" with the intent "to clarify and work through these issues."

HELP FOR WEBSITE COMES FROM QUESTIONABLE SOURCE: The only non-governmental organization "credited as having worked with HHS to create 4parents.gov" is the National Physicians Center for Family Resources (NPC). With its ties to Focus on the Family and other radically conservative organizations, the group has been accused of representing "views that are far outside the values of mainstream Americans and the public health community." With help like NPC, its no wonder that 4parents.gov pushes abstinence and discounts the notion of safe sex. On its own website, NPC states that "the abstinence-until-marriage message should be embraced as the medical model for sexual health, both in and out of the classroom" and that "suggesting that contraceptive-based education will protect the overall health of America's adolescents is a prescription for continued disaster."