Despite what the (American) religious right may teach, just saying “No” to yourself doesn’t always work.
Many of us already knew that, but it’s now official. The truth is out at last – abstinence-only programmes make the situation worse. To the surprise of few, it has recently emerged that George W. Bush’s “abstinence only” policies led directly to a rise in teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) says that after years of falling rates, teen pregnancies and STDs started rising after Bush was re-elected in 2005.
It seems to me that there are at least four obvious reasons why any “abstinence only” policy is doomed to failure from the start.
First, all teenagers have a gene which makes anything with the word “No” on it inherently attractive. During teenage years young adults have to attempt the difficult job of growing up, and part of that process involves defining the self. One way of defining the self is by making yourself distinctive from others, and many teenagers do that by proclaiming, “I am not like my parents”. If parents say “No”, teenagers are often likely to say “Yes” because they need to in order to be independent and different.
Secondly, it is natural to learn things by trial and error, and as teenage bodies become sexually mature, there is a compelling biological force encouraging learning by trial and error.
Thirdly, sexual drive is one of the most powerful forces on the face of the earth. Given that force, it is likely to need guidance in channelling it appropriately and safely, rather than flimsy attempts at restraint. Ask King Cnut.
Fourthly, saying “No” doesn’t educate, or provide protection or possibilities, it just commands and condemns. Without protection and possibilities it is encouraging the worst consequences when fallible, inexperienced human beings are unable to adhere to the adult commands.
According to the National Secular Society:
According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but rose sharply in more than half of American states after 2005. The number of teenage girls with syphilis had risen by nearly half after a big decrease, while a 20-year fall in the gonorrhea infection rate was being reversed. AIDS cases in adolescent boys had nearly doubled.
The CDC says southern states (the Bible Belt) tend to have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs. In addition, about 16,000 pregnancies were reported among girls aged 10-14 in 2004 and a similar number of young people in the age group reported having a sexually transmitted disease.
Some of the statistics the CDC report reveals:
75% of teens will have sex prior to their 20th birthday.
The teenage birth rate in the US is the highest in the developed world.
1/3 of youths have not received any instruction on methods of birth control before the age of 18.
The number of teen pregnancies is double in areas where abstinence is the only method of birth control taught as opposed to areas where there is comprehensive sex education and condoms are handed out. The organisation Planned Parenthood said the report was alarming and that teenagers needed “medically accurate, age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education”.However, religious proponents of the “abstinence-only” policies still insist that the reason for the rise is because their policies were not promoted hard enough..
Once again this story gets rehashed with all kinds of misleading details and always blamed on the Bush administration. No mention of the people who started the program (that would be the Clintons) no mention of the fact that less than 50% of the US taught abstinence only programs but pregnancy rates went up everywhere, no mention that over the same time period teens measurable exposure to sexually explicit scene and topics in movies increased 10 fold, but we never blame Hollywood, madison Avenue, or Network TV. Your oversimplification of the issue causes just as much harm as the abstinence only programs. And rare is the blog or article about the harm done by the other extreme of indoctrinating sex re-education that happens in many overly liberalized and over sexed areas or when promiscuous instructors encourage irresponsible behavior and early experimentation long before children would have started it on their own, where pregnancy is also very high and teen suicide is even higher.
michael
Thanks for dropping by. Can I take it then, that despite our disagreements, that we are in agreement that abstinence-only programmes are ineffective?