Abstinence Only Education
Is Ignorance Only
It has long been known that teens who pledge to remain virgins
until marriage are more likely to take chances with other kinds
of sex that increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.
The latest study, published in the April issue of the Journal
of Adolescent Health, found that teens pledging virginity until
marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other
teens who have not had intercourse. That behavior, however,
"puts you at risk,'' said Hannah Brueckner, assistant professor
of sociology at Yale and one of the study's authors. Among virgins,
boys who have pledged abstinence were four times more likely
to have had anal sex, according to the study.
Overall,
pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex than teens
who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge. "Kids
who pledge abstinence are taught that any word that has 'sex'
in it is considered a sexual activity." -Leslee Unruh, president
of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse The pledging group
was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual
experience or get tested for STDs, the researchers found. Data
for the study was taken from the National Longitudinal Study
of Adolescent Health.
An in-school questionnaire was given to a nationally representative
sample of students in grades 7-12 and followed up with a series
of in-home interviews roughly one, two, and six years later.
It was funded in part by the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development and the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Leslee Unruh, president of the National Abstinence
Clearinghouse in Sioux Falls, S.D., called the study "bogus,''
disputing that those involved had pledged true "abstinence.''
"Kids who pledge abstinence are taught that any word that has
'sex' in it is considered a sexual activity,'' Unruh said. "Therefore
oral sex is sex, and they are staying away.''
Millions
of teens have signed written pledges or verbally promised to
abstain from sex, part of a church-led effort to discourage
premarital sex and the spread of disease. President Bush has
boosted funding for abstinence-only education in schools. Critics
say that education needs to be coupled with safe-sex education
to be effective. "If adolescents only had sex in monogamous,
married relationships, by definition there would be no STDs,''
Brueckner said, echoing President Bush's remarks in last year's
State of the Union address. "But the majority of adolescents
don't live like that. They do have sex.'' Last year, the same
research team found that 88 percent of teens who pledge abstinence
end up having sex before marriage, compared with 99 percent
of teens who do not make a pledge.
