Harry Reid is really getting desperate to pass his health-care legislation. In a gambit that has confounded both liberal and conservative groups, the majority leader is using the health-care bill to restore funding for abstinence-only sex education programs that liberals (such as Mr. Reid himself) have spent the past three years trying to zero out.

"If Republicans aren't going to vote for this bill, I can't see why it should include their provision," complains Marcela Howell, a spokeswoman for the liberal Advocates for Youth.

Funding for abstinence programs was implemented by President Bush via block grants to states, but Democrats have been busy paring it back since taking over Congress in 2006. Mr. Reid himself introduced the Prevention First Act in the Senate to redirect funds from such programs to comprehensive sex-ed. And President Obama is no fan either, insisting during last year's campaign: "Young people do things regardless of what their parents tell them to do and I don't want my daughters ending up in really difficult situations because I didn't communicate to them, how to protect themselves if they make a mistake."

Mr. Reid says now he reinserted the provision simply because he wanted to stick as closely as possible to the Senate Finance Committee bill approved in September. What he really means is that he wants Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln to stick to her September vote. Ms. Lincoln and North Dakota's Kent Conrad joined 10 Republicans back then in voting to add just such language to the committee's version of the health care bill. Mr. Reid hopes that by giving her $50 million in abstinence education to talk about back home, Ms. Lincoln will vote for a trillion-dollar government health care takeover.

Come to think of it, a period of abstinence might be the best solution to Mr. Reid's increasingly reckless attempts to get a health care bill through the senate.
