Health and Human Services under Bush discovered that abstinence-only programs do not work

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/1476509,CST-EDT-anna14.article

Abstinence-only ed a waste of time, money

March 14, 2009

ANNA QUINDLEN [e-mail]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that there is a deep schism in this country, a schism between those many Americans who support comprehensive sex education in the schools and an equal number who believe that only abstinence should be taught, between those who want teenagers to be told about masturbation and HIV prevention and the like, and those who believe they mostly need to hear that true love waits.

It is one of those universally acknowledged truths that happen to be utterly false.

The poll results are astonishing. While respondents in some surveys are divided over whether more emphasis should be on contraception or on abstinence, nearly 90 percent of those sampled in several recent polls support the notion of sex ed in schools. I'm not sure that many people would agree about teaching long division.

But none of this is what you would hear if you put your ear to the ground in Washington, D.C. In yet another example of how things can go horribly awry within that zone of magical thinking, Congress has poured $1.5 billion into what is essentially anti-sex ed, abstinence-only programs, despite the following facts:

1. They don't work. A study for the Health and Human Services Department during the last Bush administration showed that teenagers who took abstinence-only classes were just as likely to have sex as those who didn't.

[Kievan Rus]

1. Abstinence-only is like Communism

Looks good on paper, doesn't work in reality.

[sallylou666]

2. Stll being used in my state

Duh! Unfortunately, the public schools in Texas are still using abstinence only education. My kid said that the only sex ed he got was telling him about sexually transmitted diseases. Not how to prevent getting them but trying to scare them off from sex.