Is Abstinence-Only Education the World's Most Effective Pro-Natalist Policy?

VM | December 6, 2007, 12:37pm | #

Great article! Thanks! (and the review is well-worth a read!)

P&T do a number on abstinence programs, as probably many remember!

Tancredo | December 6, 2007, 12:43pm | #

I bet real 'Merican women aren't breeding fast enough. Only reason that rate's so high is all them brown women. We don't want them breeding.

John | December 6, 2007, 12:47pm | #

Why are schools in the business of sex ed in the first place? I don't know about anyone else, but I plan to send my children to school to learn how to read and write and do math and things like that. I don't plan to send them to school to learn how to screw. My guess is they will figure that one out on their own and perhaps their limited time in school ought to be spent on more productive matters. If we just killed all sex ed in schools and told parents that it was their responsibility to teach little junior how not to get his girlfriend pregnant, it would end this whole tiresome debate and perhaps give kids time to learn something usful in school.

VM | December 6, 2007, 12:50pm | #

Ego-

certainly - better have people wallow in ignorance than be confront realities that make them uncomfortable. (*takes fierce bite of sammich*)

remember:
[singing]
a tisket a tasket
a condom or a casket.

tarran | December 6, 2007, 12:56pm | #

John,

Since the first Massachusetts public schools opened up to raise children to be members of the "right" sect of Christianity, the primary purpose of public schools have been to indoctrinate children into the morality that whomever controls the state thinks they should have.

Sure they give you parents things like PTA meetings to give you the illusion of control, but in the end if they respected your opinions, they wouldn't have tax-funded schools with compulsory attendance laws.

Lurker Kurt | December 6, 2007, 1:03pm | #

Is the jump in birth rates due to recent immigrants, both legal and illegal?

VM | December 6, 2007, 1:08pm | #

Conservative liberal.

naughty! GO TO YOUR ROOM. BUT NO BATIN. NONE.

(they have those channels IN SCHOOL, of course. no need to wait while riding the bus).

Brandybuck | December 6, 2007, 1:18pm | #

Kids might as well spend the 40 minutes staring at a brick wall.

I tried that back in high school. It didn't work. After spending 40 minutes staring at a brick wall, I was still horny.

prolefeed | December 6, 2007, 1:29pm | #

U.S. women are breeding above replacement for the first time since 1971.

Which has political implications (from http://www.amconmag.com/2004_12_06/cover.html):

"voters are picking their parties based on differing approaches to the most fundamentally important human activity: having babies. The white people in Republican-voting regions consistently have more children than the white people in Democratic-voting regions. The more kids whites have, the more pro-Bush they get ... States, however, differ significantly in white fertility. The most fecund whites are in heavily Mormon Utah, which, not coincidentally, was the only state where Bush received over 70 percent. White women average 2.45 babies in Utah compared to merely 1.11 babies in Washington, D.C., where Bush earned but 9 percent. The three New England states where Bush won less than 40 percent—Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island—are three of the four states with the lowest white birthrates, with little Rhode Island dipping below 1.5 babies per woman."

de stijl | December 6, 2007, 1:46pm | #

In honor of Jennifer, here's Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' Jennifer, She Said

TrickyVic | December 6, 2007, 1:49pm | #

I second John's post.

tim | December 6, 2007, 1:59pm | #

I also agree with jennifer...

In high school in the 80s sex-ed was wrapped up within "health class" which taught you all sorts of really really useful things like the heimlich maneuver on a plastic dummy, having good self esteem by using black and white 1950s videos (good luck if you where anything but white), taking care of a box of flour for a few weeks (which ended up becoming chocolate chip cookies in hom-ec), and how to put a condom on a cucumber (for those times that you use a cucumber and you don't know where its been).

In other words - a complete waste of an hour.

mk | December 6, 2007, 2:04pm | #

If you outsource reproduction to, say, Eastern Europe or India, does the baby count here or there?

When I was in school the local military nursing staff were in charge of drug education and sex ed. Looking back, even we elementary school kids could tell that they were stoned.

They did do a pretty good job though.

Shannon Love | December 6, 2007, 2:06pm | #

Jennifer,

Why isn't the human reproductive system simply taught in biology class, same as the respiratory and circulatory systems?

Short answer: Because looking at images of lungs doesn't make people want smoke but looking at images of sexual organs does make people want to have sex. Hell, just leaving people in a room with a tape loop saying, "sex. sex, sex" over and over makes people horny.

Sex is an innate human drive, arguably THE innate human drive. Yet, its very power makes it dangerous. All traditional human cultures recognize that talking about sex raises sexual activity. If your goal is to reduce or channel sexual activity the best way of doing so is to restrict environmental clues that evoke sexual thoughts.

Only over educated morons that believe that humans are rational beings can rationalize that a couple of weeks of formal education will overwhelm the drive of the genes or the inherited values of a culture that evolved over centuries. The less well educated who must rely on personal experience, tradition and horse sense, know better.

Michelle | December 6, 2007, 2:16pm | #

"Hell, just leaving people in a room with a tape loop saying, "sex. sex, sex" over and over makes people horny."
If teens at least knew how to use a condom they could more safely navigate their way through the erotic jungle in which you seem to believe we live

LarryA | December 6, 2007, 2:21pm | #

According to Wikipedia, it's more like only a week (that a woman is fertile).

As stated above, the trick is predicting which week. This is particularly difficult with teenagers. In the first place, their ovulation cycle hasn’t been going long enough to be that regular. In the second place, they aren’t keeping track. Standing in a motel room on prom night isn’t conducive to coolly calculating when your last period ended and what that means in terms of fertility.

From the perspective of a social conservative, you can't measure the effectiveness of abstinence based education by the birth rate because the goal of such education isn't to reduce teenage births but rather to reduce teenage conceptions.

Actually, what conservatives really want to prevent is any sexual interaction, solo or duet, specifically including coitus. Or was that the word you were looking for? “Conception” is when the sperm fertilizes the egg. Therefore decreasing conceptions would (absent preventing abortion) decrease births.

What Jennifer said, plus, they have this little pill. Set your teenage daughter down and tell her that if she needs birth control to “regulate her periods” you’ll get them for her. Then read with her the warning that pills and IUDs don’t protect against disease. You’ll be tempted to give her the moral background then, but unless you have a wayback machine it’s too late.

If your goal is to reduce or channel sexual activity the best way of doing so is to restrict environmental clues that evoke sexual thoughts.

For adults maybe. For teenagers you’d have to reduce the stimuli to the level of sensory depravation, which would only give them more time to think about doing it. Starvation might reduce the teenage libido, but it has unfortunate side effects.

Anthony | December 6, 2007, 2:29pm | #

"Why do you think we all lined up to climb the pole in third grade?"

Speak for yourself...

Abdul | December 6, 2007, 2:32pm | #

In order to have an impact on boys, that would reqire rounding up all high school girls in America and putting them into camps.

That would be the first concentraton camp in history that had more people trying to break into it than trying to escape from it.

Abdul | December 6, 2007, 2:33pm | #

If you don't get arrested for teaching biology in rural Kansas nowadays.

For Kansas, you just have to give equal time to the stork theory of reproduction.

ChicagoTom | December 6, 2007, 2:38pm | #

I don't understand the hostility to Sex-Ed.

When I was in HS, we had sex-ed as part of Health class for a semester. This also included things like CPR/Heimlich and other stuff I dont remember as vividly as the sex-ed and CPR stuff.

Sex-ed is more than merely biology. It teaches about how STDs are transmitted and what kinds of prevention/treatments were available and what kinds of symptoms one might look for if you have an STD. It also taught us about different methods of birth control and how they worked, and discussed effectiveness rates and proper usage.

Many of these topics weren't discussed at home from family for various reasons ( My parents never had a substantial talk about it other than my mom saying "don't let 5 minutes of pleasure ruin you're whole life" -- non of my friends parents talked about it either)

I also don't think my Biology teachers (who was in fact a horticulture teacher who had to teach bio that year) would have been eager or comfortable teaching about reproduction and STDs.

I also don't remember any misinformation, but I do remember that when they did discuss topics like when can you get pregnant they were very careful to be too definite about things.

All in all I thought it was a rather useful class that filled a need/void that would have been there for many students who didn't have parents who were willing to have these discussions.

Michelle | December 6, 2007, 2:43pm | #

"Pray tell then why in an age when every 12 year old not home schooled seems to know how to use a condom"
Why don't you test that empirically? I'm confident every 12 year old does not know how to use a condom and you'd negate your hypothesis if you actually took the time to test it.

Julie | December 6, 2007, 2:49pm | #

"3% constitutes a jump? That's not statistically significant." Actually, if you read the report you'd see that 3% was indeed statistically significant

dhex | December 6, 2007, 2:54pm | #

Right, that's the problem, American teenagers are to dumb to know how to put on a condom.

you may or may not be shocked to know that even college aged kids have trouble with rubbers, namely forgetting the little things that decrease the chances of slippage.

Traditional culture did suppress sexual activity often by draconian means. It can be done.

we can also stifle dissent through shooting people in the head. it can be done.

don't make it a good idea, though.

shecky | December 6, 2007, 3:02pm | #

(1) It doesn't work. Providing objective information doesn't alter decisions based on impulse and emotion. The only clear effect that sex ed ever had was raising abortion rates and even that is just a correlation.

This presumes goals that aren't necessarily there.


(2) It was imposed by elitist, authoritarian means with no regard to individual or even community cultural standards. Traditionalist parents felt absolutely raped.

Parents can object to all kinds of things and feel raped. Many places allow parents to let their kids op out. And even if they can't such parents should get a fucking life, lest they be raped by everything in society.

I find there are a number of things to complain about in the public school system. The notion of teaching about human sexuality is pretty far down the list.

TrickyVic | December 6, 2007, 3:14pm | #

""""If your goal is to reduce or channel sexual activity the best way of doing so is to restrict environmental clues that evoke sexual thoughts."""

Evnironmental clues my ass. The urge to have sex is natural, it's not environmental envoked. Stick any 16 year old male with almost any women and he'll want to do it. Unless she has some repealing feature. Well, that wouldn't stop it either, he just wouldn't tell his friends.

Guy Montag | December 6, 2007, 3:28pm | #

So, how does this effect my efforts to open a half-way house for chicks who don't go all-the-way?

Crazy Eddie the Motie | December 6, 2007, 3:46pm | #

Lucky human bastards.

"Oh, we're so special. We can just not get pregnant."

dhex | December 6, 2007, 3:49pm | #

People who still sell the idea of the desirability of sexual promiscuity still need to explain how they will mitigate harm.

yeah i don't really see how you go from point a to point b but i also think your gilded age of sexual restraint didn't actually exist either.

personally, i was not very convinced about this until i started reading up on how things used to work; what we've removed is the "you must get married" bit, not the "oh crap oh crap just knocked her up" bit. which may be your general overall point, and that somehow sexual education helped us get to the point where we no longer send women off to halfway houses or uh, dammit what's the catholic version of a house for pregnant single women? (or married women who are on the run from abusive spouses, etc) they closed a bunch on long island in the last 10 years, unfortunately.

anyway, i think you're operating in a double-bind here that you can't quite see:

Sex education was an attempt by Leftist operating from a Freudian belief to restructure American sexual culture. Parents who objected were run right over.

freudian thing aside (it's a red herring that joins conservatives and academic leftists who still take him seriously in a dance of silly willy nilly, but this is not the thread to work on that) i'm with you on the whole school control thing; i'm firmly of the belief that people should be free to teach their kids dumb and smart things as they wish (fortunate or not it is better than federal control most likely; or at the very least, it is far more fair.) so dumbass stuff like creationism, well...it'll make it that much easier for kids from less dumb districts to compete against them (and for most people it won't matter one way or the other, really, outside of perhaps retarding any interest in the sciences they may have...)

now according to you, they won. the freudian leftists i mean. (at least in part) using words, no less!

what made their words more strong than the words of the traditionalist culture they came out of? i don't particularly remember school being very influential one way or the other compared to peers and to a lesser degree my parents. a lack of truly coercive measures on the part of the school - compared to social sanctioning and certainly familial pressure/banishment - seems to make this a "war of the words" issue.

either words are powerful (they can be!) or they're not really that powerful (i lean towards this most of the time) or they're just powerful enough to fuck things up? (what i think you're trying to say)

frankly, i think you should point your eyes towards women in the workforce if you want to talk about destablilization of traditional mores. traditional sexual mores (of the sense we're talking about) are only enforceable on such a level when women are prevented from making money for themselves. even in saudi arabia and other countries, i was fascinated to learn how many young women from arab countries will get hymen reconstructive surgery done in order to make sure they can still get married.

Jennifer | December 6, 2007, 4:24pm | #

Short answer: Because looking at images of lungs doesn't make people want smoke but looking at images of sexual organs does make people want to have sex.

And looking at images of food can make people hungry, but I wouldn't argue that the way to solve America's obesity problem is to not teach kids about food. "Nutrition should be taught in the home by loving parents with benefit of clergy, not in the public schools!"

And are even teenage male horndogs actually turned on by diagrams showing the location of the uterus and fallopian tubes? If so, so what--they're teenagers, and teenagers are going to think about sex regardless of whether or not they know how it works.

Mr. Obvious | December 6, 2007, 4:38pm | #

Why would someone be surprised that sex ed in schools is leading to higher rates of pregnancy and STDs? Teachers are screwing up all subjects, not just health.

I'm sure if they raised school taxes just a bit more they'll lick the problem!

Other Matt | December 6, 2007, 4:50pm | #

And are even teenage male horndogs actually turned on by diagrams showing the location of the uterus and fallopian tubes?

Well..yes, at that age the hormones kind of obscure rational thinking. My personal opin is that you don't recover till about age 30 or so.

If so, so what--they're teenagers, and teenagers are going to think about sex regardless of whether or not they know how it works.

It's more about figuring out how it works, then having enough statistical data to make sure you personally have proven how it works.

ellipsis | December 6, 2007, 5:28pm | #

RC Dean,

I was referring to the leftist conspiracy part. Teens were having sex in the 50s as much as in the 60s, it was just wasn't talked about at all. Do-gooder gov't types later though they could do something about it. Just plain old incompetence.

Jennifer | December 6, 2007, 5:41pm | #

No idea what the fuck has gotten up Shannon Love's ass at this point.

That's exactly the sort of ignorance sex ed is supposed to eradicate!

LarryA | December 6, 2007, 7:42pm | #

Traditional culture did suppress sexual activity often by draconian means. It can be done.

Absolutely.

But if you draconially suppress sexual activity for the first two decades or so of people’s lives, how will you expect them to function normally thereafter?

Obviously, martians or the red scare explain the lower rates of pregnancy and venereal disease back in the 50's.

Actually the rate of pregnancy and particularly teen pregnancy was higher in the 50s, and even higher before then.

Until the WWII G.I. Bill kicked in most people didn’t go to college. Before the 40s, most didn’t graduate from high school. Girls became women at 14 or 15, spent “sweet sixteen” shopping for mates and getting married, and by 18 or 19 were mommies. “Waiting for the wedding night” took one or two years, not ten or twelve. And there were still lots of “early babies” in the equation.

The 50s were also the high water mark for the “Don’t sleep around ‘cause everyone’s got VD” movies.

SM | December 6, 2007, 10:06pm | #

"Hell, in many subcultures, having a baby while you're in junior high or high school is a big status thing. Its not that they take the risk they'll have a baby, they positively insist on it."

Really ? Which sub-cultures are these ?
In other words - I call Bullshit.

Mad Max | December 7, 2007, 1:58am | #

An interesting essay by Frederica Mathewes-Green:

“Teen pregnancy is not the problem. *Unwed* teen pregnancy is the problem. It's childbearing outside marriage that causes all the trouble. Restore an environment that supports younger marriage, and you won't have to fight biology for a decade or more. . . .

“It's not that young people are inherently incapable of responsibility — history disproves that — but that we no longer expect it. . . .

“The age that a man, or woman, can earn a reasonable income has been steadily increasing as education has been dumbed down. . . .

“(It's odd that kids thought to be too irresponsible for marriage are expected instead to practice heroic abstinence or diligent contraception.) . . .

“We cultivate the idea of idyllic, carefree childhood, and as the years for education have stretched so have the bounds of that playground, so that we expect even ‘kids’ in their mid-to-late twenties to avoid settling down. . . .
“During the last half of the 20th century, as brides' age rose from 20 to 25, the divorce rate doubled. The trend toward older, and presumptively more mature, couples didn't result in stronger marriages. Marital durability has more to do with the expectations and support of surrounding society than with the partners' age. . . .
“. . . young marriage can succeed, as it always has, with the support of family and friends. . . .”

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-mathewes-green092002.asp

Jennifer | December 7, 2007, 9:13am | #

I see your bullshit and raise the rose colored glasses from your eyes. I guess you haven't spent too much time around inner city African American girls.

It's true that there are lots of teenage moms in the ghetto, but I don't blame that on the sex education they get in their subpar schools; I blame that on our damnable welfare system that makes having a baby you can't support a SMART financial move from the perspective of an uneducated girl with no job skills and scant chance of acquiring any. Hell, if my unmarried self had three or four kids and sat at home all day, the total value of the welfare benefits I'd get would likely surpass the money I earn at my job (especially when you look at how much I actually pocket after taxes).

If you don't expect people to behave responsibly, don't be surprised when they act irresponsibly. And despite Shannon's frothing, the problem is not "teenagers are having sex," the problem is "teenagers are having sex without taking the simple precautions that will prevent pregnancy and disease."

SM | December 7, 2007, 3:49pm | #

dhex - I'll certainly concede it if it's backed by real research of substance, but at first listen it sounded too much like the "cadillac driving welfare queen" myth to me.
Whatever Mr.Snit may think, I don't have to have be friends with innercity folks to smell urban-myth in the air.