The Sex Education Debate: Should Schools Teach Abstinence Only or a Comprehensive Program?
Laws pass that affect your family every day. With divorce rates and the number of single-parent households on the rise, it is more important than ever that children be taught information that is nourishing and effective in the school system.
Teaching abstinence in place of contraceptive use has received a lot of attention in the media as of late. The Fiscal Year 2010 Omnibus Appropriations bill ends funding for the so-called “failed” Community Based Abstinence Education program, instead funneling significant funding into “medically accurate, evidence-based” condom-focused teen pregnancy prevention programs, according to a press announcement released in December by the American Civil Liberties Union.
If we look to our government for leadership and accurate information, the use of these monies would imply that condom-based sex education programs are scientifically proven to decrease the number of pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases in teens through the increased use of contraceptives. However, a recent study at the University of Pennsylvania might say otherwise.
This study, appearing in the February 2010 home Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (published by the American Medical Association) followed students who received one eight-hour abstinence-only intervention in middle school and found that two years later, they were one third less likely to have initiated in sexual activity. This was in comparison to peers who had attended a health class that was non-sex-ed.
On the flipside, according to the study, contraception-only sex-ed programs (a.k.a. “safe sex programs”) or programs that combined contraception and abstinence (a.k.a. “comprehensive programs”) did not increase contraceptive use, nor did they delay sexual initiation.
The University of Pennsylvania study concluded “theory-based abstinence-only interventions may have an important role in preventing adolescent sexual involvement.”
So why does Congress insist on opposing optional support for funding abstinence-based programs, in spite of evidence that abstinence-based programs are just as effective (if not more effective) as comprehensive sex-ed programs? It’s confusing. Even more confusing is the question of why, at a time when qualities such as commitment, intimacy and love should be closely linked to sex and those links reinforced through school programs, Congress and the current administration have eliminated all abstinence programs that are funded by the federal government.
Michael Monheit is the managing lawyer at Monheit Law, outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has practiced law since 1989. Michael Monheit was the managing attorney of the law offices of Herbert Monheit — now Silverman and Fodera — a firm... Michael Monheit→