ALL's STOPP International campaign also seeks to cut government funding for Planned Parenthood, which it believes misinforms women about how contraception works. Sedlak says STOPP has been successful at the city level -- closing over 100 clinics around the country in the last 10 years -- and is now targeting state funding. He pointed to the Texas Legislature's recent decision to cut Planned Parenthood's state funding as one of ALL's biggest victories. "It's not as fast as we would like, but we'll take it, and we believe it will have a snowball effect and that when people understand what they're doing we'll be closing clinics even faster."

ALL is not the only threat to Planned Parenthood's funding. In every one of his budgets, Bush has frozen funds for Title X, the 30-year-old program that pays for family-planning services for low-income women. Susanne Martinez, Planned Parenthood's vice president for public policy, says that although Congress has restored some of that money, this "assault on family planning" has crippled Planned Parenthood's contraceptive distribution -- about 95 percent of the Title X funds it receives go directly to that service. She is also concerned Bush has appointed to agencies like the FDA and Health and Human Services "people who have very publicly said they opposed the use of birth control for the unmarried. It's something [Bush] has been doing in a very strategic way."

Several other groups support ALL's views and its mission. The Family Research Council joined Republican leaders last Sunday on a national telecast blasting the Democrats for blocking appointments of conservative judges who could decide key reproductive-rights issues. And while the conservative Concerned Women for America (CFA) says it does not take a position on contraception, it does oppose abortion and has been vigorously defending the recent drive by anti-choice pharmacists to stop distributing emergency contraception, which CFA considers an "abortion pill."

One of the social conservatives' biggest victories has been the "abstinence-only until marriage" sex education programs in the public schools, according to Boonstra, of the Alan Guttmacher Institute. Those federally funded programs prohibit any discussion of contraception except in the context of failure rates -- which Boonstra says are inaccurate. An AGI survey of teachers found one in 50 schools taught abstinence-only in 1988; the number increased to one in four in 1999. That is the most recent accounting period, but the movement has clearly snowballed. The federal government has spent more than $1 billion since 1982 on those programs -- of that, $620 million has been spent in the past seven years, and President Bush is seeking an all-time high of $206 million for the 2006 budget. Some states are also moving the programs into elementary schools.

The abstinence-only programs -- which have largely replaced safe-sex education -- have not only curbed the distribution of condoms and birth control pills in school health clinics, but have entirely banned information about contraceptives and sexual health. The nonprofit Abstinence Clearinghouse, which promotes such programs, says few could argue that refraining from sex is the only sure-fire way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. And it dismisses repeated studies finding that abstinence-only programs are ineffective in either delaying sexual experience among teens or protecting them from disease. So does Alma Golden, Bush's pick to head the Population Affairs department, which runs the programs. "One thing is very clear for our children, abstaining from sex is the most effective means of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV, STDs and preventing pregnancy and the emotional, social and educational consequences of teen sexual activity," she says on the Clearinghouse's Web site.

Recently, pharmacies have provided another avenue for restricting access to contraception. At least 12 states have introduced "conscience clause" laws that would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill contraceptive prescriptions on moral or religious grounds. Four states, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and South Dakota, already have such laws on the books. The flap over Plan B and RU-486, which results in an abortion within seven weeks, have intensified this drive, but some pharmacists are refusing to dispense any form of birth control. The American Pharmacists Association, which represents about 52,000 pharmacists, supports a compromise that would allow pharmacists to "step away" from dispensing drugs they oppose as long as another pharmacist is on hand to fill the prescription.

Recent Stories