Abstinence Reports Published!

June 14, 2007 – Dr. Stan Weed has recently released a detailed report on the differences in outcomes between abstinence education and so-called “comprehensive sex education,” which includes discussions about condoms and condones premarital sexual acts.The report, “’Abstinence’ or ‘Comprehensive’ Sex Education?” was published by the Institute for Research and Evaluation. Among the conclusions in this report are these:

Many serious problems are associated with adolescent sexual activity.
Abstinence education offers benefits to adolescents and society that are not found in the comprehensive sex education approach.
Several well-designed evaluations of abstinence programs have found significant, long-term reductions in adolescent sexual activity.

A separate report has been published by The Department of Health and Human Services. The “Review of Comprehensive Sex Education Curricula,” published in May 2007 analyzes the effectiveness of comprehensive sex education. The study was requested by Senators Rick Santorum (PA) and Tom Coburn (OK) in 2005.

The report concludes with these words:

Research on the effectiveness of nine commonly used comprehensive sex education curricula demonstrates that, while such curricula show small positive impacts on increasing condom use among youth, only a couple of curricula show impacts on delaying sexual debut; moreover, effects most often disappear over time. The fact that both the state purposes and the actual content of these curricula emphasize ways to lessen risks associated with sexual activity – and not necessarily avoiding sexual activity – may explain why research shows them to be more effective at increasing condom use than at delaying sexual debut. Lastly, although the medical accuracy of comprehensive sex education curricula is nearly 100% -- similar to that of abstinence-until-marriage curricula – efforts could be made to more extensively detail condom failure rates in context.

For more information on abstinence, contact the National Abstinence Clearinghouse.

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