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House holds sex ed hearing
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The federal government has spent about $1.3 billion on abstinence education programs since 1996. A House of Representatives hearing yesterday suggested it has been money wasted.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called the hearing to assess the facts concerning the federal Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Program, an 11-year effort to provide funding to states for abstinence-only sexual education classes. These programs must exclusively teach that abstinence is the best protection from STDs and pregnancy and that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity.” On the other end of the spectrum, comprehensive sex ed programs inform teens how they can protect themselves should they decide to engage in sexual activity.
The general conclusion of the hearing was rather pat: Abstinence education is idealistic, and it backfires when teens decide to have sex because they have no knowledge of other protection methods. MotherJones blogger Stephanie Mencimer agrees:
About a bazillion studies have all found that not only does abstinence-only education not work to reduce unwed pregnancy or STDs, but that it perpetuates false information about the reliability of the things that do work, disparages gays and lesbians, promotes religion in public schools, and demeans women.
Those “bazillion” studies, all linked off of the ACLU website, provide evidence that abstinence education does not decrease pre-marital sex and may even deter teens from who are sexually active from using protection.
The studies backing their conclusion, however, is not as conclusive as they imply. One study Rep. Henry Waxman referenced, a supposed “rigorous, multi-year, scientific evaluation” has received critique—its data included only 4 of approximately 700 abstinence programs across the country.
Dr. Stan Weed, a witness at the hearing, reported findings from the Institute for Research and Evaluation concluding that abstinence education programs “can reduce teen sexual activity by as much as one half for periods of one to two years.” Their study* involved more than 100 evaluations of programs in 30 states across 15 years. And The Heritage Foundation published a study just Tuesday showing that sexual activity was significantly reduced in 11 of the 15 abstinence programs they reviewed.
*CORRECTION: The paper was not original research on the abstinence programs. It was, however, a comprehensive assessment of 21 other studies regarding various abstinence programs.
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Topic: Front Page, The Nation |  |
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Keywords: abstinence only education, comprehensive sex education, sex-education |  |
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Reporters? choice
if you want less of anything produced, including premarital promiscuity, put the Feds in charge of it!
Here’s what we do:
We create an agency called the Department of Reproduction and Procreation (DRP) and require every citizen to have licenses to reproduce or engage in sexual activity.
Naturally, there would be different tiers and types of licenses. Those not qualified to have children would have “Non Parental” licenses.
There’d be an age limit to who could hold a breeding license, and we could have cops go on random “bedroom stops” to ensure that the law was being enforced properly. Those who practiced procreation without a license would face stiff penalties, naturally. We would also require tests before people were licensed, so no one who wasn’t qualified to breed would be allowed to. Sure, there’d be the occasional accident, but that’s what insurance companies are for.
Once we spend the money to create the bureaucracy, hire all the extra police officers and train the employees, everything would be right with the world. With the DMV as our shining example, we could finally sit back and thank our lucky stars that we have such an efficient and involved government.
Yoshiyahu - You forgot the obvious, tax it! Aggressively! Progressively!
Well, I thought that went without saying.
But you’re right. Can’t forget to tax it.
Communists
Might I suggest you take a closer look at the research available. The Heritage Foundation, sponsor of your last study cited is dedicated to “to formulate and promote conservative public policies”. Additionally, if you read the “study” you will note that the studies that were compared to get positive results about abstinence were not comparable at all. In several cases, multi-year or multi-session intensive abstinence only program was compared to a single weekend, or video-based comprehensive program. Of course the kids who get more time and more individual attention are going to have better results. I suggest you read more articles in peer-reviewed journals before jumping on the abstinence-based bandwagon.