Shock News: Abstinence-Only Education Doesn't Work

[Lemur]

Looks like even Texas is figuring this out:

More government money has been spent on the cause of sexual abstinence in Texas than any other state, but it still has the third-highest teen birth rate in the country and the highest percentage of teen mothers giving birth more than once.

The rate of student pregnancies in Austin high schools has increased 57 percent since the 2005-06 school year, and rates of sexually transmitted diseases are rising among Travis County teens. [...]

The abstinence-only approach to sex education, which has cost U.S. taxpayers at least $1.3 billion since 1996, has fallen out of favor in many parts of the country. Half the states had withdrawn from Title V by the time it ended in June. In other recent developments:

The American Medical Association adopted a report that found that sex education programs based on promoting abstinence produced "no delay of initiating sexual activity, no reduction in the number of sexual partners and no increase in abstinence." The AMA recommended schools use comprehensive sex education instead.

A study released by Columbia University found that earlier progress in increasing contraceptive use among teens has stalled. Another troubling trend: The CDC reported that birth rates among adolescents ages 15-19 are continuing to increase after years of decline; so are rates of gonorrhea and syphilis infection.

Raise your hand if you're surprised.

[Aemilius Paulus]

I am not...

Abstinence is farce. How many teen males wish to be celibate??

[Fragony]

Never mess with the way of things.

[Whacker]

More wonderful throwbacks to the Puritan fools that settled on these shores centuries ago.

I will say this much though. Two major fears kept me from doing the deed until early in college; pregnancy and disease. Pregnancy carries the obvious problems with it, like cutting your life short so you have to go to work to support the child. There were more than a few teen pregnancies in my high school, quite a few of which were due to broken prophylactics too. Disease is a lot more insidious, there was also a lot of it going around my high school. Some of that crap is just nasty, and can stay with you for life. No thanks.

[Aemilius Paulus]

I will say this much though. Two major fears kept me from doing the deed until early in college; pregnancy and disease. Pregnancy carries the obvious problems with it, like cutting your life short so you have to go to work to support the child. There were more than a few teen pregnancies in my high school, quite a few of which were due to broken prophylactics too. Disease is a lot more insidious, there was also a lot of it going around my high school. Some of that crap is just nasty, and can stay with you for life. No thanks.

Yeah, same here. If I was actually attracted to women that is.

Those religious fundamentalists should instead cite the exorbitant contraception failure rates as well as the horrors of STIs. That is the only effective advertising IMHO.

[AlexanderSextus]

Contraceptives can work quite well as long as you dont use them like "HURRDURR s4f3s3ckz".

[ICantSpellDawg]

Looks like even Texas is figuring this out:

More government money has been spent on the cause of sexual abstinence in Texas than any other state, but it still has the third-highest teen birth rate in the country and the highest percentage of teen mothers giving birth more than once.

The rate of student pregnancies in Austin high schools has increased 57 percent since the 2005-06 school year, and rates of sexually transmitted diseases are rising among Travis County teens. [...]

The abstinence-only approach to sex education, which has cost U.S. taxpayers at least $1.3 billion since 1996, has fallen out of favor in many parts of the country. Half the states had withdrawn from Title V by the time it ended in June. In other recent developments:

The American Medical Association adopted a report that found that sex education programs based on promoting abstinence produced "no delay of initiating sexual activity, no reduction in the number of sexual partners and no increase in abstinence." The AMA recommended schools use comprehensive sex education instead.

A study released by Columbia University found that earlier progress in increasing contraceptive use among teens has stalled. Another troubling trend: The CDC reported that birth rates among adolescents ages 15-19 are continuing to increase after years of decline; so are rates of gonorrhea and syphilis infection.

Raise your hand if you're surprised.

The government telling people not to have sex won't do it. Churches and Media have to take up the flag. Churches should have an easier time of discussing it than they do and Media directors need to resist the easy sell.

[Kadagar_AV]

The government telling people not to have sex won't do it. Churches and Media have to take up the flag. Churches should have an easier time of discussing it than they do and Media directors need to resist the easy sell.

Just what centuray are you living in?

"Churches" should be the ones responcible to educate? Wouldn't your post belong on the Medieval or Medieval II part of the forum?

My point being, schools should be what is educating...

if you want faith, you can go to church. "Faith" meaning you believe in some very edited old book, not "faith" as in "I have a great faith that the sun will rise tomorrow".

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The pill ‘messes with her hormone levels’ sufficiently it typically takes a few days before her hormone levels are back to ‘normal’: which is to say the pill she took yesterday is still effective enough to prevent her pregnancy today.

Not the sort of thing you should be relying upon though.

Name one experience in life that does not mark you one way or the other.

Can't. Here's a counter question, name one experience that leaves a negative mark that you'd like to repeat, or would recomend to another. Actually, name two.

Nobody who gets an abortion wanted to get pregnant in the first place.

I'm sorry, but this is FAR AND AWAY the most ignorant thing I've ever seen you write.

[Kadagar_AV]

I'm sorry, but this is FAR AND AWAY the most ignorant thing I've ever seen you write.

Sorry, but how was that part ignorant?

It's kind of granted that someone who has an abortion obviosly didn't want to have a child at that time...

[Lemur]

Here's a counter question, name one experience that leaves a negative mark that you'd like to repeat, or would recomend to another. Actually, name two.

1. Amateur boxing
2. Mountaineering

[Kadagar_AV]

1. Amateur boxing
2. Mountaineering

SKIING!!!!!!!

dont let this de-rail the thread though :(

[Lemur]

"Churches" should be the ones responcible to educate?

Yeah, absolutely. I think you're misunderstanding what TSM was saying. He's not advocating that churches offer sex ed, rather that the moral element can only come from family, church, books, etc. It isn't the government's place to offer a spiritual or moral solution to a problem. That's a different job.

At the end of the day, if people are amoral, they cannot be governed. And one of the places morality can be imprinted is church. Not saying it's the only place, but it's an important one.

[Kadagar_AV]

Yeah, absolutely. I think you're misunderstanding what TSM was saying. He's not advocating that churches offer sex ed, rather that the moral element can only come from family, church, books, etc. It isn't the government's place to offer a spiritual or moral solution to a problem. That's a different job.

At the end of the day, if people are amoral, they cannot be governed. And one of the places morality can be imprinted is church. Not saying it's the only place, but it's an important one.

If you go to church to get a moral base, you have to agree on everything the church has done the last couple of hundred years or so...

And if you agree on that, I rate you at the same level as... Hmmm... I cant come up with an example.

Suffice to say, I would rate your moral lower than the lowest.

[Lemur]

If you go to church to get a moral base, you have to agree on everything the church has done the last couple of hundred years or so...

Who told you that? How on earth did you draw such a conclusion?

I know many people who attend church and don't buy into every last aspect of theology or doctrine. Note that American Catholics are famously divergent from orthodoxy, a point of pain for the Roman Church. Heck, me and my kids attend the Episcopal Church, and I can guarantee you we don't agree with everything said or advocated.

You seem to have this image of church-going people as mindless zombies who follow every dictum and sacrifice their free will or something. It's both insulting and false.