The Robbinsdale Radical believes I'm having a rough week because it was announced yesterday that a report found students who participated in an abstinence program were just as likely to end up having sex as those who didn't. The gloating is understandable, given our ideological opposition, and initially I won't begrudge the Radical a moment of satisfaction.
Okay, the moment is over.
These results are definitely disappointing to those of us who support teaching young people to be sexually responsible and wait until marriage.
However, as a Fox News report points out, the study only looked at four programs out of hundreds across the country, and they were some of the earliest programs, so who knows if other programs aren't working better?
We also don't know the full background of the children involved, specifically whether the teachings of the program was being reinforced at home and in other areas of their lives. From the Fox report:
"This report confirms that these interventions are not like vaccines. You can't expect one dose in middle school, or a small dose, to be protective all throughout the youth's high school career," said Harry Wilson, the commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau at the Administration for Children and Families.
Advocates of sexual responsibility such as myself have always stressed that society should be sending a broad and consistent message of sexual responsibility (starting at home and being reinforced at church, school, in the neighborhoods, and in the media--yes, they should be expected to send a responsible message, too, just as they did back in those "despicable '50s").
The study isn't all good news for sexual anarchists, though. A claim frequently made by condom advocates was also left unsupported by the study:
"I really do think it's a two-part story. First, there is no evidence that the programs increased the rate of sexual abstinence," said Chris Trenholm, a senior researcher at Mathematica who oversaw the study. "However, the second part of the story that I think is equally important is that we find no evidence that the programs increased the rate of unprotected sex."
Ultimately, though it's never wrong to teach the right thing. Opposing efforts to teach young people to be sexually responsible and wait until marriage to have sex is ludicrous.
Saying that because of these findings we shouldn't be teaching abstinence is like saying that because you taught your children not to play in the street, and they ignored you played in the street anyway, that you shouldn't have taught them not to play in the street.
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