Georgia: Teen Pregnancy Clinic Could Stop Handing Out Condoms if State Budget Plans Approved

A state effort to replace safe sex counseling with an abstinence-only approach could bring changes at a teen health clinic in Bibb County.

Last month, the Georgia Department of Human Resources board approved a budget that cuts $4.7 million from adolescent health and development programs. If approved by Gov. Sonny Perdue and the Georgia Legislature, the cuts would affect 39 teen centers statewide. The money, which funds different programs in different counties, pays to staff a teen health clinic in Bibb. The new DHR proposal includes a plan to reopen five of those 39 centers as part of a pilot program to explore new ways of reducing teen pregnancy.

Those advocating safe sex counseling as a means to lower teen pregnancy rates and prevent the spread of STDs are worried that the cuts will mean that state-funded health clinics in Bibb and other counties may soon stop handing out condoms.

Ann Mintz, policy director for the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, said a combination of safe sex and abstinence counseling is the best way to prevent teen pregnancy and lower STD rates. But she and other advocates worry that the new leadership of the DHR wants to abandon that method. Bruce Cook, the new DHR board chair, is the founder of Atlanta- based Choosing the Best Publishing, which sells abstinence-only curricula to schools. Perdue's aides stress that no final decisions have been made. Responding to a $1 billion shortfall, Perdue ordered all state agencies to cut 7.5 percent out of their budgets for 2003 and 2004.

Should the cuts go through, the Macon-Bibb County Health Department likely will provide those services now offered by the Bibb Teen Parent Center -- including providing physicals, condoms and birth control pills -- at three other locations where they are currently offered, said Ecleamus Ricks, administrator of the Macon-Bibb County Health Department.

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