Abstinence Only

Last night on 60 Minutes, Ed Bradley examined abstinence-only sex education, focusing to a great degree on the religious organization Silver Ring Thing, which promotes pledges of abstinence--so-called virginity pledges--to teenagers. These organizations currently receive federal funds to spread a message that is ineffective at best, and downright dangerous at worst. According to 60 Minutes, Silver Ring Thing has received more than $1 million from the government, just a drop in the bucket of the almost $1 billion doled out to teach abstinence only.

Books have been written (shameless plug: including parts of my book, Teaching AIDS,) on why abstinence-only education doesn’t work, so I’ll be short. Not only does abstinence-only avoid teaching about proper condom use for people who do have sex, some, such as Silver Ring Thing and Choosing the Best, a school-based curriculum, actively dissuade teens from using condoms, arguing that they aren’t effective. Choosing the Best cites a 14-16 percent failure rate (for the math-impaired, that’s an 84-86 percent success rate), without acknowledging that the vast majority of that failure is due to using the condom incorrectly. When used correctly, condom failure rates fall to 1 or 2 percent. (It should also be noted that “condom failure” means that a condom did not contain all the ejaculate released; it does not always result in pregnancy or the spread of STDs.) Thus, potentially life-saving information is being kept from teens so that these “educators” can promote their own agenda, which often comes down to Christian evangelism. Through some sort of loophole, religious organizations can still get the government money.

The report last night cited statistics that 88 percent of teens who pledge to abstain from sex until they are married ultimately break that promise, and that doesn’t even count those who have oral or anal sex to technically hold on to their virginal status by avoiding vaginal sex. This is illustrative of the breakdown of logic that’s more and more a part of our national dialogue. Condoms must be shunned because they are successful only 84-86 percent of the time. Abstinence-only education, however, successful just 12 percent of the time, should be continued, because at least it’s helpful for that 12 percent.

But, I hear you saying, abstinence is the only way to achieve 100 percent avoidance of pregnancy and the spread of STDs. Of course it is. That's why abstinence should be a primary part of any sex education program. There are a lot of good reasons to remain abstinent, and teens and other students deserve to be told about them. It's abstinence-only that's the problem. We should teach about more things, not fewer. I talk about that in my book, too, by the way.

A couple of weeks ago, it was reported that six Southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina) saw their number of AIDS cases rise by 27 percent from 2000 to 2002 (North Carolina had a 36 percent rise form 2001 to 2003). Kate Whetton, a health policy expert from Duke University, said, "You're better off being born in Costa Rica or some South American countries than in Durham, N.C." We’ve got to come up with sex education that’s helpful for more than just 12 percent of the students. That means telling them the truth about condoms and shoving abstinence-only education to the side of the road where it belongs.