Surprise: Abstinence Pledges Do Not Result in Abstinence

From this morning's Post:

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

"Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. "But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking." Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds

Okay, I'll admit, there's something going on here that I don't get. I think a lot of people like me were kind of surprised to see the reaction that Sarah Palin's pregnant teenage daughter got. Conservatives, the religious right, the puritans -- they loved it. They were overjoyed that that child had gotten knocked up, and I don't get that.

So here we learn that abstinence pledges don't ... I was going to say "don't work," but I might be missing something. Maybe they do work. Maybe it is a smashing success when teenagers have unprotected sex and make wonderful babies. Maybe that's the point. Some of us on the liberal side think that a person should reach a certain stage of maturity before they become a parent, maybe it's a good idea to marry first. Weird thought, I know.

Does anybody really think that you can get teenagers to put off having sex by getting them to promise not to do it?

The study is the latest in a series that have raised questions about programs that focus on encouraging abstinence until marriage, including those that specifically ask students to publicly declare their intention to remain virgins. The new analysis, however, goes beyond earlier analyses by focusing on teens who had similar values about sex and other issues before they took a virginity pledge.

"Previous studies would compare a mixture of apples and oranges," Rosenbaum said. "I tried to pull out the apples and compare only the apples to other apples."

The findings are reigniting the debate about the effectiveness of abstinence-focused sexual education just as Congress and the new Obama administration are about to reconsider the more than $176 million in annual funding for such programs.

"This study again raises the issue of why the federal government is continuing to invest in abstinence-only programs," said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "What have we gained if we only encourage young people to delay sex until they are older, but then when they do become sexually active -- and most do well before marriage -- they don't protect themselves or their partners?"

James Wagoner of the advocacy group Advocates for Youth agreed: "The Democratic Congress needs to get its head out of the sand and get real about sex education in America."

I'll bet he didn't really say "head out of the sand." The fact that our federal government puts money into these programs is just insane. Teenagers -- more than ever now, with the Internet streaming sexual fantasies at them -- need to get accurate information about sex.

This is one thing that I really hope turns sharply around after January 20th.

Proponents of such programs, however, dismissed the study as flawed and argued that programs that focus on abstinence go much further than simply asking youths to make a one-time promise to remain virgins.

"It is remarkable that an author who employs rigorous research methodology would then compromise those standards by making wild, ideologically tainted and inaccurate analysis regarding the content of abstinence education programs," said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association.

Woo hoo, them's some strong words, lady! "Wild, ideologically tainted and inaccurate--" oh, never mind.

Rosenbaum analyzed data collected by the federal government's National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which gathered detailed information from a representative sample of about 11,000 students in grades seven through 12 in 1995, 1996 and 2001.

Although researchers have analyzed data from that survey before to examine abstinence education programs, the new study is the first to use a more stringent method to account for other factors that could influence the teens' behavior, such as their attitudes about sex before they took the pledge.

Rosenbaum focused on about 3,400 students who had not had sex or taken a virginity pledge in 1995. She compared 289 students who were 17 years old on average in 1996, when they took a virginity pledge, with 645 who did not take a pledge but were otherwise similar. She based that judgment on about 100 variables, including their attitudes and their parents' attitudes about sex and their perception of their friends' attitudes about sex and birth control.

"This study came about because somebody who decides to take a virginity pledge tends to be different from the average American teenager. The pledgers tend to be more religious. They tend to be more conservative. They tend to be less positive about sex. There are some striking differences," Rosenbaum said. "So comparing pledgers to all non-pledgers doesn't make a lot of sense."

What would you do if you were fifteen or sixteen years old and they came around trying to get you to sign some kind of thing like this? Yes, I would say the pledgers are different from other kids.

By 2001, Rosenbaum found, 82 percent of those who had taken a pledge had retracted their promises, and there was no significant difference in the proportion of students in both groups who had engaged in any type of sexual activity, including giving or receiving oral sex, vaginal intercourse, the age at which they first had sex, or their number of sexual partners. More than half of both groups had engaged in various types of sexual activity, had an average of about three sexual partners and had had sex for the first time by age 21 even if they were unmarried.

"It seems that pledgers aren't really internalizing the pledge," Rosenbaum said. "Participating in a program doesn't appear to be motivating them to change their behavior. It seems like abstinence has to come from an individual conviction rather than participating in a program."

Our county's schools are well on the way toward a comprehensive sex-ed curriculum. Students learn a lot in middle and high school about sex and the risks involved. But it's all such a political game.

I remember when the MCPS citizens advisory committee, which I am a member of, was discussing a new curriculum. Somebody said, shouldn't there be something in here about what to do if you get pregnant? Really, there are three choices: abort, put the baby up for adoption, or raise the child. I think that just about sums it up, three choices, with legal systems to support them and the support of society. You could feel a chill in the room as we discussed this, knowing full well our county's schools would never be allowed to address such an obvious topic.

And here's something else you might discuss among yourselves, another politically charged topic. Do you think our county's sex-ed classes teach about the clitoris? It appears on some illustrations of the female reproductive system, I know, but do you think any teacher tells students what the clitoris is for? And why do you think that is?

As long as we're on the topic, look at this. Another article in The Post this morning talks about the clitoris and won't even say the word. Speaking of a little Kurdish girl named Sheelan, they say "part of Sheelan's genitals." Maybe somebody can tell me, what's the big secret? It's an anatomical structure, a body part with a proper medical name, how is it that one of the nation's leading newspapers can't even say the word? This whole article is about the way the clitoris is treated in Kurdish society, and they cannot bring themselves to tell the reader what it is they're talking about. In Kurdistan they cut it off, in America we just pretend it doesn't exist.

Okay, back to the related subject of abstinence pledges.

While there was no difference in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases in the two groups, the percentage of students who reported condom use was about 10 points lower for those who had taken the pledge, and they were about 6 percentage points less likely to use any form of contraception. For example, about 24 percent of those who had taken a pledge said they always used a condom, compared with about 34 percent of those who had not.

Rosenbaum attributed the difference to what youths learn about condoms in abstinence-focused programs.

"There's been a lot of work that has found that teenagers who take part in abstinence-only education have more negative views about condoms," she said. "They tend not to give accurate information about condoms and birth control."

But Huber disputed that charge.

"Abstinence education programs provide accurate information on the level of protection offered through the typical use of condoms and contraception," she said. "Students understand that while condoms may reduce the risk of infection and/or pregnancy, they do not remove the risk."

It is time for the government to stop supporting these stupid abstinence programs. I know there are people who think it's important to preserve ignorance but if there is any lesson we have learned over the last eight years it is this: don't let those people make decisions that affect the rest of us. They may be nice folks, their intentions might be good, but we don't want them running things. Let's use our educational system to educate.