California Family Minute  >  California Family Minute  >  California Family Minute  >  Message from Ron Prentice  >  Father – and Mother – Know Best

Father – and Mother – Know Best


Father – and Mother – Know Best
A 2007 Zogby survey found that 90 percent of parents agreed that abstinence is best for their child’s health and future. Most wanted their children taught a message of waiting until marriage to have sex, and over half of them believed that promoting and demonstrating condom usage encourages early sexual activity. Parents know the risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) – and the tragic impact that may have on their children now and in the future.
In a climate of heated ideological debates, with rising pregnancy and STD rates among teens, a new, government-financed study determined that a targeted, abstinence-only class had a significant and long-lasting impact on teen sexual activity. 
The study, recently published in the American Medical Association’s Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, followed a group of 662 African American adolescents in an urban area over a period of two years. Each student was randomly assigned to one of four groups – an abstinence-only sex-education class; a session that focused on “safe,” condom-based sex education; a comprehensive sex education class that looked at both abstinence and risk-avoiding “safe sex;” and a control group focused on healthy-living habits unrelated to sex education. Each of the sessions lasted between 8 and 12 hours.
Two years later, students in the abstinence-only group showed a reduction of sexual activity by a third; those in that group who were sexually active were no less likely to use contraception. On the other hand, those in the safe-sex groups showed little reduction in sexual activity and were not more likely to use a condom, a key emphasis in safe-sex programs. These statistics directly contradict the claims opponents have long leveled against abstinence, and instead make clear the ineffectiveness of “safe-sex” education.
The study specifically focused on African American adolescents due to evidence of that demography group being particularly susceptible to the risks of unintended pregnancy and STDs. In 2005, only 17 percent of adolescents in the United States were African Americans, but 69 percent of all adolescents with HIV were African American. STD rates are highest in the African American population, and are predominant among females, and pregnancy rates have been higher among them than with their Hispanic and other white counterparts.
As noted in last week’s Dateline Sacramento, the facts regarding abstinence education’s positive impact in reducing teen pregnancy and disease is mired in politics and money, with its detractors claiming the lion’s share of the money to promote comprehensive sex education.  Arguing from a position of ideology, opponents of abstinence education have raked in four times more money for teen pregnancy-planning services and comprehensive sex education than abstinence programs receive. In FY 2008, the United States Department of Health and Human Services spent $609.3 million on pregnancy- and STD-prevention programs, and family-planning services for teens, compared to the $176.5 million spent on abstinence programs. 
Eliminating federal funding for abstinence, the Obama administration has provided $114 million for a teen-pregnancy prevention initiative to fund programs scientifically proven to be effective. Perhaps the results of this latest study will help more abstinence programs acquire government funding. After all, parents prefer to fund abstinence education over comprehensive sex education by a margin of 3 to 1.
  • Printer-friendly version