The only reason I believe some preach abstinence education doesn’t work is that it interferes with their selling condom and other birth control devices. The American way is Money trumps morals.:-)

“Let me fill in some of the details on those studies. There’s the Texas A & M study. There’s the Bruckner/Bearman study. There’s the Advocates for Youth study of 10 state programs. And there’s the comprehensive study commissioned by Congress of several abstinence only programs around the country. All of these studies confirmed that abstinence only programs do little, if anything, to reduce rates of teen sex; several studies, on the other hand, have shown that they do result in considerably lower rates of contraception usage by those who go through the programs. This might have something to do with the fact that abstinence only programs contain numerous false claims, some of them quite laughable.”

Quite a list of studies to show that abstinence only programs DO NOT WORK! Don’t you agree? So perhaps you should retract your article and appologise to the ACLU. That is if you have a genuine concern for the truth.

Rhymes, I don’t put much stock in anecdotes. They’re useful for dispelling blanket statements, but there’s a lot of gray area in this one and I think we all recognize that. So, one particular sample of children doesn’t mean a whole lot.

BTW, I’ve never encountered a single sex ed curriculum that could accurately be described as “go ahead, just use a condom”. Without fail, they are some variation of “The risks are A, B, and C. The risks can be mitigated with X, Y, and Z. The risks can only be eliminated with abstinence.”

Yes, but I went further than that, Jay. When only abstinence is taught, those that ignore the lesson (We all know there are children that will ignore even the best lessons) are guaranteed to end up in a very risky situation. Not only do they lack the necessary maturity to make a proper decision, they don’t even have the raw data.

But actually, my biggest objection is a matter of principle. An abstinence-only program willfully withholds valid and relevant data. Studies and statistics are often used to support that approach, but the primary motivation is invariably moral. Schools are not the proper place to teach morality. We have parents and clergy for that.

RegularRon makes the greatest point. This is a topic that the schools should leave to the parents completely.

None of my girls who have tried abstinence are pregnant.

Want to talk to me about the lack of success of abstinence?

Shouldn’t this be the parents job and Churches? I know that’s a strange concept to some, but that’s how it use to work. Kind of like the whole “Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marrige”. Why is the Government even involved with Marrige? That’s a sacrament. Period. Nothing to do with Governement. It’s between a man,woman, and God. Not some moronic Governement offical.

It’s the samething with this. The Government has no business being involved with this stuff. Limited Government Conservatives my foot.

I still lack the understanding to grasp exactly how abstinence doesn’t work. I would think it is the only method of birth control that works 100% of the time

When rating the effectiveness of various birth control devices, they usually have two ratings: effectiveness with proper use and effectiveness with normal use. Let’s apply the same logic here.

The problem with abstinence-only as a birth control method is that it’s 100% effective with proper use, but only [Insert some low random number here]% effective with normal use.

That is why some people think it’s a bad approach. Agree or disagree, but is it really that hard to understand?