Republican policy in action

[rubato]

I agree with scooter it is more an anti-female policy than anti-non-white policy.

yrs,
rubato

[Grim Reaper]

Care to elaborate?

Abstinence-only education is pretty much a complete failure, but instead of trying to come up with a more comprehensive sex education that actually works, they just double-down on their current system.

[dgs49]

Where are the studies that compare school systems in which (a) abstinence only is taught, and (b) the full panoply of contraception is taught, to comparable demographic groups? I see a lot of mocking of "abstinence only" (the only absolutely-certain method of birth control), but "Where's the beef?"

The studies that I have seen are intended to "prove" that "abstinence only" doesn't work by citing statistics of comparable sexual activity and pregnancies in schools where that has been the practice. So what? Where is a valid study proving that "comprehensive" sex ed is successful at improving the status quo ante? Where is the study that cites a school where there is a large minority population, the teachers all have packs of condoms on their desks, and the teen birth and abortion rates have substantially decreased?

Where is a study that compares, for example, public and parochial schools, side by side, in the same inner city neighborhoods (there are many such cases). Compare the pregnancy, abortion, and live birth rates for the two student populations. Certainly, the parochial school with be teaching, "abstinence only." No doubt other factors would come into play, mainly parental involvement, but there is no reason why such data would not be available.

Teenagers are not inclined to consider consequences and risks. They are frequently irrational in their behavior. Their hormones are raging. Often, when given conflicting signals, they only hear what they want to hear. "Don't do this, but if you take these precautions, then you will be all right." They hear this as, "Go ahead and do this!"

If you teach a group of teenagers that they can engage in risky behavior (risking pregnancy) WITHOUT FEAR OF THE CONSEQUENCES, provided they use certain methods of contraception, you are going to end up with kids engaging in the risky behavior and not bothering with the precautions. And the problem will manifest itself to the greatest extent in populations where there is not a strong family to exert influence to control behavior, behave responsibly, and defer gratification. I dare say that the recent downward trend in teen pregnancies has more to do with the difficulty of getting welfare than enhanced sex education.

Again, where are the studies that show the superior results of "comprehensive" sex education versus teaching "abstinence only" in comparable populations? Like it or not, "comprehensive" sex ed is implicitly telling teenagers that there is nothing wrong with having sex, a viewpoint that the vast majority of parents dispute.

[Scooter]

Journal of Adolescent Health 42 (2008) 344–351

Purpose: The role that sex education plays in the initiation of sexual activity and risk of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (STD) is controversial in the United States. Despite several systematic reviews, few epidemiologic evaluations of the effectiveness of these programs on a population level have been conducted.
Methods: Among never-married heterosexual adolescents, aged 15–19 years, who participated in Cycle 6 (2002) of the National Survey of Family Growth and reported on formal sex education received before their first sexual intercourse (n 1719), we compared the sexual health risks of adolescents who received abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education to those of adolescents who received no
formal sex education. Weighted multivariate logistic regression generated population-based estimates.
Results: Adolescents who received comprehensive sex education were significantly less likely to report teen pregnancy (ORadj .4, 95% CI .22– .69, p .001) than those who received no formal sex education, whereas there was no significant effect of abstinence-only education (ORadj .7, 95% CI .38 –1.45, p .38). Abstinence-only education did not reduce the likelihood of engaging in vaginal intercourse (ORadj .8, 95% CI .51–1.31, p .40), but comprehensive sex education was marginally associated with a lower likelihood of reporting having engaged in vaginal intercourse (ORadj .7, 95% CI .49 –1.02, p .06). Neither abstinence-only nor comprehensive sex education significantly reduced the likelihood of reported STD diagnoses (ORadj 1.7, 95% CI .57–34.76, p .36 and ORadj 1.8, 95% CI .67–5.00, p .24 respectively).
Conclusions: Teaching about contraception was not associated with increased risk of adolescent sexual activity or STD. Adolescents who received comprehensive sex education had a lower risk of pregnancy than adolescents who received abstinence-only or no sex education. © 2008 Society for Adolescent Medicine. All rights reserved.

[Grim Reaper]

If you teach a group of teenagers that they can engage in risky behavior (risking pregnancy) WITHOUT FEAR OF THE CONSEQUENCES, provided they use certain methods of contraception, you are going to end up with kids engaging in the risky behavior and not bothering with the precautions.

Right. Because telling teenagers there are safe ways of having sex only ever results in teenagers having unsafe sex. They're going to have sex regardless, why not try to reduce the chances of unsafe sex?

Of course, the option you seem to support is to not tell them about any safe ways of having sex. Which will definitely lead to having unsafe sex.

[Scooter]

Teaching about contraception was not associated with increased risk of adolescent sexual activity or STD.

That should put to bed once and for all this notion that teaching kids about sex will encourage them to engage in it.

But it won't.

[Big RR]

Agreed GR. Just as teaching kids how to properly and safely handle knives, matches, or even drive cars does not immediately lead to unsafe behaviors with these activities.

[Gob]

Does teaching kids how to use guns lead to an increase in teenage shootings? Ban it!!

[rubato]

Where are the studies that compare school systems in which (a) abstinence only is taught, and (b) the full panoply of contraception is taught, to comparable demographic groups? I see a lot of mocking of "abstinence only" (the only absolutely-certain method of birth control), but "Where's the beef?"
... "

You really don't read much, do you?

Spend a short while researching this subject for yourself. Use Google. You may have to pretend that you care about the facts at some point.

yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

Now here's a HUGE endorsement for ya:

"Abstinence-only education did not reduce the likelihood of engaging in vaginal intercourse (ORadj .8, 95% CI .51–1.31, p .40), but comprehensive sex education was marginally associated with a lower likelihood of reporting having engaged in vaginal intercourse (ORadj .7, 95% CI .49 –1.02, p .06). Neither abstinence-only nor comprehensive sex education significantly reduced the likelihood of reported STD diagnoses (ORadj 1.7, 95% CI .57–34.76, p .36 and ORadj 1.8, 95% CI .67–5.00, p .24 respectively)."

According to this, it doesn't really matter what you do.

As for the "they're gonna do it anyway" school of thought, would you suggest we teach HS boys how to drive at high speeds while drunk? They're gonna do it anyway. Might as well teach 'em how! It could easily be done on simulators without danger to anyone during the instruction process.

[Scooter]

No one ever claimed that comprehensive sex education was going to reduce the frequency of sex. That is a strawman of your invention, because you have nothing to rebut the evidence that abstinence-only doesn't work. And yet, even on that score, it does better than abstinence-only programs, which did not reduce the frequency of sex at all. Which is beside the point, since comprehensive sex ed substantially decreases teen pregnancy (which abstinence-only also utterly fails to do) which is the key primary endpoint of any sex ed program.

And your analogies need work. Comprehensive sex ed is like teaching HS kids how to drive, while telling them not to speed or drive drunk. Abstinence--only, OTOH, is like telling teenagers they should never drive a car and expecting that they will follow your advice.

[Grim Reaper]

Apparently we should stop teaching driver's education as well since it doesn't stop teenagers from driving nor does it stop them from ever having accidents.

[rubato]

Now here's a HUGE endorsement for ya:

"Abstinence-only education did not reduce the likelihood of engaging in vaginal intercourse (ORadj .8, 95% CI .51–1.31, p .40), but comprehensive sex education was marginally associated with a lower likelihood of reporting having engaged in vaginal intercourse (ORadj .7, 95% CI .49 –1.02, p .06). Neither abstinence-only nor comprehensive sex education significantly reduced the likelihood of reported STD diagnoses (ORadj 1.7, 95% CI .57–34.76, p .36 and ORadj 1.8, 95% CI .67–5.00, p .24 respectively)."

According to this, it doesn't really matter what you do.

As for the "they're gonna do it anyway" school of thought, would you suggest we teach HS boys how to drive at high speeds while drunk? They're gonna do it anyway. Might as well teach 'em how! It could easily be done on simulators without danger to anyone during the instruction process.

The states with the highest rates of teen pregnancy and the highest rates of unwed motherhood all rely on "abstinence only".

In the "Blue states" the parents help their teen children buy birth control and make sure they know how biology works.

yrs,
rubato