Abstinence-Only "Education" — Another Horrible Legacy of the Bush Administration

Perhaps you have heard about the conclusions of the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy's report on abstinence-only programs. In case you haven't, guess what? They don't work.

According to the report,

"At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners" among teenagers.

The study found that while abstinence-only efforts appear to have little positive impact, more comprehensive sex education programs were having "positive outcomes" including teenagers "delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use."

I love what this columnist in Texas wrote about the report:

"...the study 'debunks myths' that comprehensive sex education promotes teenage sexual activity and sends mixed messages to children.

If it did, how come we don’t believe the same is true of drug education?"

Thanks to abstinence-only programs, kids are not being educated about condom use and, as a result, STDs and teen pregnancies are on the rise in many areas. But many schools are afraid of comprehensive programs. Why? They'll lose federal funding. Thanks W.

The other week, the almost-always excellent Boston Legal featured a case of a 15 year old girl who becomes HIV-positive after having unprotected sex. She decides to sue her school for teaching abstinence-only. Luckily for her, she hired Emmy-award winner James Spader (a.k.a. "Alan Shore") to do the actual suing:



(Click to watch)

(Bush cartoon "courtesy" of CampusProgress.org.)