Sex Ed Study Shows More Pregnancy in Abstinence Only Programs
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 13:10
The first national comparison of comprehensive versus abstinence-only sex education programs performed by researchers at the University of Washington, found that heterosexual teens (aged 15-19) who received comprehensive sex education were 50% less likely to report pregnancy than those receiving abstinence-only sex ed. They were also 60% less likely to report pregnancies than teens who received no sex education.
In addition, teens who received comprehensive sex education, including information about condoms, other forms of birth control and disease prevention, and abstinence, were no more likely to have had sexual intercourse. Neither type of sex education reduced a teens odds of contracting a sexually transmitted disease.
While some conservative groups claim that abstinence-only sex education helps delay sexual activity, the results of this study seriously call that notion to question. All in all, the study showed that abstinence-only education has been ineffective at reducing the likelihood that teens will engage in sexual activity or become pregnant. The notion that providing any sort of sex education at all promotes sexual activity and pregnancy is also discounted by the higher rates of teen pregnancy in study participants who’d received no sex education.
While further studies will be needed to validate theses results, for the time being it seems like the best possible course of action is to provide teens with medically accurate information about birth control, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
quiet-mom.com » Blog Archive » Can’t keep quiet… says:
March 26th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
[...] Her blog post refers to a “national comparison” article with the title “UWresearches say comprehensive sex ed cuts teen pregnancies.” [...]
judith says:
November 16th, 2008 at 3:37 am
I think it’s very important that teenagers are given the full facts in a proffesional way, rather than the ‘tittle tattle’ and misleading information passed around the school yard. I’m sure most teenagers would prefer it that way too.
Nate Herb Benefits Guy says:
January 30th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Some key words that were under emphasized in these studies were “Reported Pregnancies”. How many pregnancies were not reported. The difference in Abstinence vs. Sex Ed programs are the intent. Abstinence tries to teach that Sex is an act that should be conducted by two mature people ready to commit to each other. Many studies have concluded that monogamous sexual relationships are the only ones that are truly “safe”. Sex Ed teaches that “Since we know you are going to do it anyway, here are some ways to do it and not have health or other ill benefits. Why do people say the abstinence programs don’t work, because the material learned was disregarded, that’s why it didn’t work. This is similar to saying “Drivers education doesn’t work, because kids see the scary movies, but still drive too fast and are intoxicated”. It’s not the education that is bad, just the disregard for it.
Nate
Kristie says:
January 30th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Good point. Even when well taught, there are a lot of lessons kids aren’t going to pay attention to – especially in their teen years.