CDC Report Finds Abstinence Education Works
by Bill Fancher and Jenni Parker
December 16, 2004
(AgapePress) - Despite recent attacks on abstinence education, its proponents are celebrating the release of a new evaluation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that offers evidence that such abstinence-based programs are working.Abstinence Clearinghouse director Leslie Unruh is hailing the CDC's report, "Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Childbearing, 2002," as welcome news for the family, for child health advocates, and for abstinence education supporters. "The study confirms that more teens are abstaining, and the average age of the onset of sexual activity is increasing," she says, "so this is good news."
Unruh feels the CDC evaluation can be viewed as a vindication of abstinence education. "Since every study shows that the younger people become sexually active, the more partners they will have," she notes, "people have to realize that abstinence until marriage is really the only answer for America."
Still, the Abstinence Clearinghouse director says criticism and attacks against abstinence education will always continue because the attackers belong to a paradigm that trusts in latex, and they are motivated by their faith in that paradigm to push condom-based education programs that promote the "safe-sex" myth. That myth -- like the conflict between abstinence education advocates and contraception education proponents -- persists "because we have two different worldviews," she asserts.
However, Unruh points out, it is hard to argue with numbers; and the numbers show that abstinence education is reaching kids where they are and helping them make healthy choices for their future lives. "I think we really need to take heed," she says, "because this report is really a message to these [contraceptive education promoters] that they cannot continue in the route that they've been going."
Young people want the truth, Unruh insists. "Contraception educators have been lying to them for decades, saying that sex outside of marriage can be casual and safe," she adds, but kids know this is not true. She says they have learned that lesson the hard way by watching their friends get pregnant or contract a sexually transmitted disease.
More Bad News for Condom Crowd
Another CDC report, released last week, reveals more bad news for contraception education advocates. Entitled "Use of Contraception and the Use of Family Planning Services in the United States: 1982 - 2002," the report indicates that more women are relying on family planning services than ever before, while studies show birth spacing and pregnancy prevention education-related outcomes not improving but, in fact, worsening.
In light of these , Unruh remarks, "Contraception pushers wanted studies and in-depth analysis of sex education programs. Well, they've got them. I hope they're ready. They've got some explaining to do."
Although the CDC's report on U.S. teens reflects positively on abstinence-based education, the Abstinence Clearinghouse notes that not all of the news reported in the evaluation is cause to celebrate. One bit of bad news was the finding that an estimated nine percent of sexually active females age 18-24 reported that their first experience of sexual intercourse was involuntary.
Christina Espenscheid, educational programs director for the Abstinence Clearinghouse, says these statistics are "by anyone's standard, simply unacceptable." This information, she contends, clearly underscores the need for age-appropriate discussion about good and bad touching and the need for teaching refusal skills to young girls.
