OP-ED: Lies We Teach Teenagers (March 2007)
By Julie Sternberg, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project
Adolescence. We’ve all been there, and I would bet that most everyone remembers how awkward it can be. Hormones surge. Bodies transform. And suddenly there are a lot of questions about sex, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Teens often cobble together answers to these new and embarrassing questions, yet the information they come up with is often uniformed, ill-advised, or downright wrong.
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STUDY: Abstinence and abstinence-only education: A review of U.S. policies and programs (January 2006)
John Santelli, M.D., M.P.H.a, Mary A. Ott, M.D.b, Maureen Lyon, Ph.D.c, Jennifer Rogers, M.P.H.d, Daniel Summers, M.D.e, Rebecca Schleifer, J.D., M.P.H.f
Abstinence from sexual intercourse is an important behavioral strategy for preventing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and pregnancy among adolescents. Many adolescents, including most younger adolescents, have not initiated sexual intercourse and many sexually experienced adolescents and young adults are abstinent for varying periods of time. There is broad support for abstinence as a necessary and appropriate part of sexuality education. Controversy arises when abstinence is provided to adolescents as a sole choice and where health information on other choices is restricted or misrepresented. Although abstinence is theoretically fully effective, in actual practice abstinence often fails to protect against pregnancy and STIs. Few Americans remain abstinent until marriage; many do not or cannot marry, and most initiate sexual intercourse and other sexual behaviors as adolescents. Although abstinence is a healthy behavioral option for teens, abstinence as a sole option for adolescents is scientifically and ethically problematic. A recent emphasis on abstinence-only programs and policies appears to be undermining more comprehensive sexuality education and other government-sponsored programs. We believe that abstinence-only education programs, as defined by federal funding requirements, are morally problematic, by withholding information and promoting questionable and inaccurate opinions. Abstinence-only programs threaten fundamental human rights to health, information, and life.
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REPORT: Abstinence Education: Efforts to Assess the Accuracy and Effectiveness of Federally Funded Programs (October 2006)
United States Government Accountability Office
Reducing the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies is one objective of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS provides funding to states and organizations that provide abstinence-until-marriage education as one approach to address this objective. GAO was asked to describe the oversight of federally funded abstinence-until-marriage education programs. GAO is reporting on (1) efforts by HHS and states to assess the scientific accuracy of materials used in these programs and (2) efforts by HHS, states, and researchers to assess the effectiveness of these programs. GAO reviewed documents and interviewed HHS officials in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) that award grants for these programs.
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REPORT: Sex and HIV Education Programs for Youth: Their Impact and Important Characteristics (May 2006)
Douglas Kirby, PhD, B.A Laris, MPH, and Lori Rolleri, MSW, MPH
Sex and HIV Education Programs for Youth: Their Impact and Important Characteristics, released in May 2006, and authored by Douglas Kirby, PhD, B.A Laris, MPH, Lori Rolleri, MSW, MPH, and ETR Associates examines sex and HIV education programs based on a written curriculum and that are implemented among groups of youth in schools, clinics, or other community settings. The report summarizes a review of 83 evaluations of such programs typically focused on pregnancy or HIV/STI prevention behaviors, not on broader issues of sexuality such as developmental stages, gender roles, or romantic relationships in developing and developed countries.
The report lists the 17 characteristics of effective programs including development, curriculum content, and implementation for such programs.
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REPORT: Putting Teens At Risk: A Report on Abstinence-Only Programs in North Carolina (July 2006)
NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Foundation
Young people need and deserve complete, accurate, and culturally and age-appropriate
information about their reproductive health, including abstinence, pregnancy prevention,
and sexually transmitted disease (STD) and HIV/AIDS prevention. Sexuality education
in public schools is one way to impart important information and skills for students to
delay sexual intercourse and to use safer sexual methods when they do not choose to
abstain. In North Carolina, this is particularly crucial due to the following alarming
statistics:
• NC has the ninth highest teen pregnancy rate in the US.
• In FY 2001-2002, teen pregnancy cost NC over one billion dollars.
• As of 2000, NC had the highest birth rate in the nation for Latinas ages 15-19.
• NC has the 7th highest rate of gonorrhea infection and the 18th highest rate of
chlamydia infection in the US.
• Nearly half of all new STDs, including HIV occur in youth between 15-24 years of
age.
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REPORT: Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs in Ohio (June 2005)
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
This report, released in June of 2005 by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, details the false and misleading information regarding sexual health and wellness promoted through a number of Ohio’s federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.
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STUDY: After the promise: the STD consequences of adolescent virginity pledges (January 2005)
Hannah Brückner, Ph.D. and Peter Bearman, Ph.D.
"After the promise: the STD consequences of adolescent virginity pledges," examines the effectiveness of virginity pledges in reducing STD infection rates among young adults (ages 18-24). The researchers conclude that the STD infection rates for teens who have taken virginity pledges do not differ from those of nonpledgers and suggest that pledgers are less likely than others to use condoms at sexual debut and to be tested and diagnosed with STDs.
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OP-ED: Responsible Spending: Real Sex Ed for Real Lives (March 2005)
By Louise Melling, Director, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project
Censorship. Misinformation. Indoctrination. Parents don't associate these words with their children's education, and taxpayers don't expect such practices to be funded by millions of federal dollars. Yet when President Bush proposed a $39 million increase in federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education in his 2006 budget, he asked Congress to do just that. If the president gets what he asked for, the federal government will throw nearly $206 million in the next fiscal year into programs that a growing body of evidence shows are ineffective at best, and dangerous at worst.
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STATEMENT: Abstinence-Only Education: A Joint Statement (2002)
National Coalition Against Censorship
This joint statement -- endorsed by 45 organizations committed to the First Amendment and freedom of thought, inquiry, and speech -- discusses the civil liberties concerns that arise when publicly funded sexuality education programs restrict students' access to information and limit learning to one "approved" message about human sexuality.
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STUDY: Promising the Future: Virginity Pledges and First Intercourse (January 2001)
Peter S. Bearman and Hannah Bruckner
Since 1993, in response to a movement sponsored by the Southern Baptist Church, over 2.5 million adolescents have taken public "virginity" pledges, in which they promise to abstain from sex until marriage. This paper explores the effect of those pledges on the transition to first intercourse. Adolescents who pledge are much less likely to have intercourse than adolescents who do not pledge. The delay effect is substantial. On the other hand, the pledge does not work for adolescents at all ages. Second, pledging delays intercourse only in contexts where there are some, but not too many, pledgers. The pledge works because it is embedded in an identity movement. Consequently, the pledge identity is meaningful only in contexts where it is at least partially nonnormative. Consequences of pledging are explored for those who break their promise. Promise breakers are less likely than others to use contraception at first intercourse.
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STATEMENT: ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project
To fight government attacks on reproductive freedeom, the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project works every day to ensure that everyone – whether rich or poor, young or old, rural or urban – can get the reproductive health services they need.
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DEFINITION: Eight-Point Definition Guiding Federal Funding of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs
To receive federal abstinence-only-until-marriage funds, programs must offer curricula that are consistent with the eight-point definition of abstinence-only education set out in Section 510 of the Social Security Act. In particular, they must have as their “exclusive purpose” teaching the benefits of abstinence. In addition, recipients of federal funds may not provide a participating adolescent with any information that is inconsistent with these and similar messages in the same setting as the abstinence program. Consequently, recipients of abstinence-only dollars may not advocate contraceptive use or teach contraceptive methods except to emphasize their failure rates.
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Find out what is happening in your state to Take Issue, Take Charge today.
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Take Issue, Take Charge Today
We all want healthy families and teens, but what can we do to help foster these goals in our communities? For starters we can ensure that teens have the education they need to make responsible choices when it comes to sex. We can teach them about the benefits of abstinence while making sure that they have the information and tools they need to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases if they do start having sex. Together we can Take Issue, Take Charge!
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