hold a nickel between your knees and other marvels of modern science
~90% of the kids who commit to abstinence have premarital sex. We can’t teach accurate health information, though, because it would encourage them to have premarital sex. As nine out of ten of them are already doing. Without knowing how to protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy. Because we don’t tell them. Because it would encourage nine out of ten of them to have premarital sex. Which they’re already doing.
Waxman and other liberal sex-education proponents argue that adolescents who take abstinence-only programs are ill-equipped to protect themselves if they become sexually active. According to the latest CDC data, 61 percent of graduating high school seniors have had sex.
Supporters of the abstinence approach, also called abstinence until marriage, counter that teaching young people about “safer sex” is an invitation to have sex.
Alma Golden, deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that Waxman’s report is a political document that does a “disservice to our children.” Speaking as a pediatrician, Golden said, she knows “abstaining from sex is the most effective means of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV, STDs and preventing pregnancy.”
Nonpartisan researchers have been unable to document measurable benefits of the abstinence-only model. Columbia University researchers found that although teenagers who take “virginity pledges” may wait longer to initiate sexual activity, 88 percent eventually have premarital sex.
In other Why Johnny doesn’t work for NASA news, girls are being encouraged in their abstinence programs not to disagree with their boyfriends or they might lose them and their future financial support (for which they will exchange admiration and sexual fulfillment, unless he asks for it too early, in which case you can not give it to him, as long as you don’t lessen his confidence. He’ll let you know).
December 2nd, 2004 at 1:10 pm
Well, for this administration, a 10% success rate would be a step up.