I saw this briefly maybe as a ticker item on CNN yesterday, but here’s a SHOCKING (really?) revelation: Abstinence-only education just won’t work.
From Quick.
Abstinence programs impotent?
Abstinence-only programs — the hallmark of the Bush administration’s federal sex education policy — seem to have little impact on the behavior of Texas teenagers.
The first evaluation of programs throughout the state has found that students in almost all high school grades were more sexually active after abstinence education.
Researchers don’t believe the programs encouraged teenagers to have sex, only that the abstinence message did not interfere with the usual trends among adolescents growing up.
“We didn’t find what many would like for us to find,” said researcher Buzz Pruitt of Texas A&M University.
Hmm, I've always been skeptical of these programs. This is what they did in Kansas and it never seemed to be effective. The biggest problem is that it doesn't educate people about what to do if they decide to have sex. That can have some really unfortunate consequences.