Abstinence Pledges Don't Work---What A Shock

No surprise at all. The pledges seem to work as well as does ignorance-only sex ed.

(Excerpted. The emphases are mine).

New study finds that abstinence pledging teens still have sex

December 29, 11:58 AM
by Michele Johansen & Lexie Tigre, Seattle Eastside Parenting Examiners

For several years, teens pledging abstinence until marriage have been on the rise. While this may give their parents some peace of mind, a new federal study announced today that teens who pledge abstinence are just as likely to have premarital sex than teens who do not pledge abstinence. Even more unsettling is the finding that teens planning to save themselves are less likely to use birth control when they do have sex. Well, moms and dads, you might want to put a hold on that abstinence party you were planning for your teen. Looks like that peace of mind was really just a false sense of security.

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The federal government has spent over $100 million dollars on abstinence education and the question of whether or not they are effective is now in the spotlight. Adding to the frenzy is the discovery that students that had taken the pledge were less likely to use condoms or other forms of birth control when they did have sex. Rosenbaum says this is due to the difference of what youths learn in abstinence-focused programs. 'They tend not to give accurate information about condoms and birth control' in such programs, a statement that Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association vehemently disagrees with. "Abstinence education programs provide accurate information on the level of protection offered through the typical use of condoms and contraception," she says.

First, I'm not sure if Ms. Huber is drinkin' the Kosmic Kool Aid or if she really believes that tripe, but it's absolutely not true that abstinence only sex ed tells kids the truth about what they need to know.

A blast from the past...

To recap...(from one of my 2007 columns) documenting the findings of Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman's 2004 report

Abstinence-only sex ed programs have “educated” teenagers that:

Condoms have little to no effect in preventing pregnancies, HIV/AIDS, or other sexually transmitted diseases. (Bullshit. When properly used, condoms have a success rate of greater than 97%).

Abortions render one woman in ten sterile and increase the risk of fetal birth defects in subsequent pregnancies. (More bullshit. The most common abortion procedures have no impact at all on subsequent pregnancies).

The HIV/AIDS virus can be spread through human sweat and tears. (Unbelievably outrageous bullshit, here. There’s never been a documented case of HIV/AIDS contracted through tears or sweat.)

One program stated that “twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create” a new individual. The correct number is twenty-THREE chromosomes, Dr. Science. Even Wikipedia got this one right. This same program also proclaimed that “boys produce both male and female sperm,” which should be news to biologists and physicians the world over.

And the abstinence-only programs aren’t just perpetuating scientific myths, either. They’re telling our teenagers that “Women gauge their happiness and judge their success through their relationships. Men’s happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments.” Women are more concerned with financial support and men are more concerned with domestic support. Women are naturally weaker, more emotional, and need more protection from the world while men are naturally more aggressive and emotionally shallow.

But where was I? Oh, yeah.

So, abstinence pledges don't work any more effectively than does abstinence only sex ed. That is to say, not at all.

I just think it's fitting this story came down just as G.O.P. Vice-Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska announced she'd just become a grandma at the ripe old age of forty-four. Palin's eighteen year old unmarried daughter and the girl's teenaged boyfriend Levi Johnston had a baby boy on Dec. 30th. It hasn't been talked about much, but Gov. Palin's as Holy as any Holy Terror in politics today, so while the neo-cons have been applauding Bristol's decision to keep the baby, they haven't made much of the fact that these two teenagers sure as hell didn't plan to have a baby, nor that they could have avoided this whole mess if they'd invested seven bucks in a box of condoms.

Ah, well. Youth.