Shocker: WaPo – Abstinence May Be All That Works
This comes as a surprise given the source. And it also seems Obama can't catch a break. He cut $170 million in funding for abstinence programs this year. More Oba-fail?
Sex education classes that focus on encouraging children to remain abstinent can persuade a significant proportion to delay sexual activity, researchers reported Monday in a landmark study that could have major implications for U.S. efforts to protect young people against unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
Only about a third of sixth- and seventh-graders who completed an abstinence-focused program started having sex within the next two years, researchers found. Nearly half of the students who attended other classes, including ones that combined information about abstinence and contraception, became sexually active.
The Obama administration eliminated more than $170 million in annual federal funding targeted at abstinence programs after a series of reports concluded that the approach was ineffective. Instead, the White House is launching a $114 million pregnancy prevention initiative that will fund only programs that have been shown scientifically to work — a program the administration on Monday proposed expanding to $183 million.
“…programs that have been shown scientifically to work…” Of course we know that the researchers who produce these studies won’t allow their biases to color their “science”. You know, like those climate scientists.
There are so many studies like this that goes both ways. Studies funded by people against sex ed magically show “abstinence only” works. Studies funded by people for sex ed show abstinence ed does nothing.
I really don’t care anyone what study people point to.
I see it this way: Even if the study above is accurate, is that really something to be proud of? 1/3 is not much less than 1/2, and you can have 1/2 of kids having sex and knowing how to protect themselves (not that they necessarily will ) or 1/3 of kids having sex but not having any clue how to be safe. Which would you rather have?
Just like everything, it’s up to the parents to teach kids, no matter what the school teaches.
Don’t be as dumb as the Washington Post, plutosdad. The reasons the studies seem to go both ways is that they seem to confuse “abstinence only” with “absitnence focused”. If 1/6 of teens delay having sex until they are old enough to make wiser decisions AND they know how to protect themselves, that’s a pretty good thing. Some of the people talking about it (including the study leader) use the term “abstinence-only” but not necessarily to refer to the program studied itself. That phrase seems to be “abstinence focused”. The only reason for a different term, one would think, is that it’s something else.
Speaking as a product of many (non-abstinence-anything) sex-ed programs (we moved around a lot), I never learned anything useful in those classes. I’ve never understood how asking my gym teacher to talk about sex was supposed to change anyone’s behavior over anything, nor is it clear why this particular problem needs to be dealt with by the government, of all things.
That came out too harsh and I apologize. Obviously, my last paragraph and your last sentence are in agreement. I just get frustrated by people use evidence of one thing to support a conversation about alternatives, neither of which are relevant to the study.
I would think that everyone should be encouraged by the results of this study, as if it can be replicated, it appears to be a strategy that actually works.
Teaching kids in 2010 that they shouldn’t have sex until they’re married was stupid to begin with and a message like that doesn’t belong in public schools, similarly, teaching children about contraception absent ANY type of value judgement on teenage sex is likewise stupid.
There are all kinds of data points that pretty conclusively prove that the younger a teen has sex the higher they are for any number of other risk factors and that sex within the confines of a relationship is better for both parties. It seems that this kind of non religious, common sense message that is in the middle is what this particular program focused on and it looks like it works. Good for them, it’s a rare triumph for common sense.
I never realized that sex was so complicated. In my day, we figured out that you stick your schnitzel in her slot, you had an excellent chance of pregnancy and/or disease. So you didn’t do it. You fooled around alot but not the final score – that was too much like playing Russian Roulette. We learned the mechanics of the process in biology, although most boys knew it before then. Why is this such a big deal now? Of course, self-control was not an un-PC concept then, as it is today.
Thanks for posting this. I threw you a link.
I think the programs against early pregnancy is quite effective in some other way; it just so happen that many teens nowaday are still taking the risks of unsafe sex.