Abstinence-Only
Sex Education Is 'Ideology In Search Of A
Methodology,' Opinion Piece Says
Although the U.S.' "national investment" in abstinence-only
sex education "may not be a scam
on the scale of Bernie Madoff, ... this industry
has had standards for truth as loose as some
mortgage lenders," syndicated columnist Ellen
Goodman writes in a Pittsburgh Post Gazette
opinion piece. Goodman writes that a
recent Johns Hopkins study about teenagers and virginity
pledges found
"absolutely no difference" in the sexual behavior of those who took pledges and
those who
did not. She writes, "In fact, the only difference" was that teens who took pledges
were "significantly less likely to use birth control, especially condoms." She
adds that the
"lesson many students seemed to retain from their abstinence-only program
was a negative and
inaccurate view of contraception." The study is "not just a
primer on the capacity for teenage
denial or the inner workings of adolescent
neurobiology," Goodman writes. She adds, "What
makes this study important is simply this: 'virginity pledges' are one of the ways that the
government measures
whether abstinence-only education is 'working.' They count the pledges
as proof
that teens will abstain," which is "like counting New Year's resolutions as proof
that
you lost 10 pounds."
Goodman continues, "Over the last eight years, a cottage
industry of 'abstinence- only-until-
marriage' purveyors became a McMansion industry."
According to Goodman, annual funding
for abstinence-only programs
increased from $73 million in 2001 to $204 million in 2008, for
"a grand total of $1.5
billion in federal money for an ideology in search of a methodology."
Goodman writes
that, "By now, there's an archive of research showing that the binge was a
bust,"
and that "abstinence-only programs have been given failing grades for truth and
effectiveness."
The "sorry part is that sex education got caught in the
culture wars," continues Goodman. She
writes that Bill Albert of the National Campaign
to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
said sex education has been framed "as a battle
between 'those who wanted virginity pledges
and those who wanted to
hand out condoms to 14-year-olds.'" According to Goodman,
"Meanwhile, six in 10
teens have sex before they leave high school and 730,000 teenage girls
will
get pregnant this year .What the overwhelming majority of
protective parents actually want
is not a political battle. They want teens to delay sex and to have honest
information about
sexuality, including contraception." Goodman says that the "programs that
work best combine
those lessons." She concludes that teenagers "are not the
only masters of denial. But we are
finally stepping back from the culture wars.
We are, with luck, returning to something that used
to be redundant --
evidence-based science. That's a pledge worth signing and remembering"
(Goodman,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1/2).
Courtesy of
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com.
|
