En Tequila Es Verdad/progressive conservatism/post/2009/03/23/0752
March 23, 2009 7:52 AM - Mike
Mike at The Big Stick said...
Just as a nail in the coffin on the abstinence-only criticism that they actually increase the number of abortions, here is some info from a 2007 congressional study (bold emphasis mine):
Findings indicate that, despite the effects seen after the first year, programs had no statistically significant impact on eventual behavior. Based on data from the final follow-up survey, youth in the program group were no more likely to abstain from sex than their control group counterparts; among those who reported having had sex, program and control group youth had similar numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex at the same mean age. Youth in the program group, however, were no more likely to have engaged in unprotected sex than their control group counterparts. Finally, there were no differences in potential consequences of teen sex, including pregnancies, births, and reported STDs.
As the study shows, there is no actively negative impact to abstinence-only education verses no education at all so the claim that it increases the number of abortions is false.
Source:
http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/impactabstinence.pdf