Abstinence Education

Katherine Kersten, the Star Tribune's local conservative columnist, comments today on the recent government study that found abstinence-only education programs in the schools are no more effective than standard sex-ed classes in delaying adolescents' sexual activity. Once again we see an example of today's conservative approach to science: facts don't matter; ideology does.

The study can be dismissed because it was small:

But anyone who wants to make public policy based on this study should think again. Its sample was small and unrepresentative, says Dr. Gary Rose of the Medical Institute of Austin, Texas, a research organization that supports abstinence education.

The study included only four of the more than 900 programs that have received federal support, he says, and three were in communities made up largely of single-parent households.

Naturally, abstinence education would fail in single parent families.(?) No bias there. But what really matters to Kersten is not the effectiveness of abstinence-only education; what matters to her is that abstinence programs deliver the right moral message:

Authentic abstinence curricula take a very different approach. They view sex not primarily as a source of pleasure or self-expression but as a deeply significant act with moral, emotional and psychological dimensions. As a result, they focus on teaching students about the differences between love and sex, and encouraging them to view sexuality as part of a lifelong process of developing intimacy that will culminate ideally in a faithful marriage.

The truth of the matter is that this is a good message - with the understanding that marriage can include same-sex couples. It's a message that I believe parents should deliver to their children from an early age; its a message that religious communities should deliver to their children from an early age; its part of a message that schools should deliver to their children as part of a comprehensive sex education program that teaches children the facts about human biology and sexuality, and that teaches them about the full range of birth control options.

Kersten displays a certain level of naivete here about human nature and about teenage hormones in particular. We want our children to wait to be sexually active until they are mature and in committed relationships. We can and ought to do what we can to encourage them to resist the message of our over-sexed culture. But sometimes teenage hormones do what they do, even to the very "best" of children, including those raised in Kersten's "ideal" homes with a husband and wife who go to church every Sunday.

I want my children to know what I believe about sexual morality, and I also want them to know the facts about sex and to know all of their options. Let's not throw more federal or state money to support something that doesn't work.