Abstinence-Only Education Works in Texas

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, April 18 — Relying on their moral convictions and gut instinct they were doing the right thing, parents and educators in an urban San Antonio school district decided six years ago to teach only abstinence education.

It apparently worked.

In 1997-98, the Edgewood Independent School District decided to implement an abstinence-only curriculum. Results were dramatic: Pregnancies among sixth- to eighth-graders declined to a single case in 2000-01. At Kennedy High School in the district, the numbers dropped from 50 in 1998-99 to six in 2000-01.

Last year, however, state officials refused without explanation to renew the district's funding for the abstinence-only program, the Tribune reported, forcing it to cancel the program in middle schools and scale it back in high schools.

By the end of the year, middle-school pregnancies increased to 11. At Kennedy, they went up to 53.

“I don't know what more evidence anybody needs,” said Richard Rocha, director of the district's programs, “that this was working.”

Stem Cell Battles Erupt in More States

USA TODAY, April 20 — “Shoot the TV if you want to avoid hearing the buzzwords of stem-cell politics this year,” USA Today advises.

Thirty-three state legislatures are considering 100 bills either condoning, condemning or funding embryonic stem-cell research during this election year.

One of the biggest battles regards providing $3 billion of taxpayer money for such research in California. Supporters gained enough signatures recently to put the issue on the ballot this November.

“There is a tremendous amount of legislation flying around on one area of medical research. It is remarkable and unprecedented,” Dan Perry of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, a collaboration of 83 patient groups, universities and medical organizations that support the research, told the paper.

All the activity, the paper says, is due to President Bush's severely restricting federal funding of such research in 2001. Supporters say the research could help find cures or better treatments for diabetes and other conditions. Opponents — including the Church — point out the research harvests cells from living human embryos that are then destroyed.

The paper quoted Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who pointed out that “moral tradition does urge us to treat each and every living member of the human species, including the early embryo, as a human person with fundamental rights, the first of which is the right to life.”

Christopher Plummer to Play Cardinal Law in TV Movie

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 15 — Actor Christopher Plummer, 74, will play former Boston Cardinal Bernard Law in the upcoming “Our Fathers,” a television movie about the sexual-abuse scandal in the Church.

Plummer will bring “authority, humanity and an appropriately chilling detachment” to the part, said Robert Greenblatt, Showtime Networks’ entertainment president.

The movie will be based on a book of the same name by David France of Newsweek, published in January.

Production of the movie is scheduled to begin in June, the wire service reported. A release date has not yet been announced.