Bristol Palin Knows: Intentions of Abstinence Don't Work
February 18, 2009
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s 18-year old daughter Bristol, who gave birth in December of 2008, said in an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren,said that teaching abstinence is “not realistic at all,” as a way of preventing teen pregnancy. Is there evidence to back this up? There is indeed.
Trenholm et al reviewed survey results from more than 2,000 teenagers who had been randomly assigned to participate in one of four abstinence-only education programs, or no sexual education program. They found that there were no differences in teen sexual activity, unprotected sex, knowledge or impact of sexually transmitted diseases, condoms, or birth control pills among those who had received the abstinence-only education compared to those who had had no sexual education. Rosenbaum reports in the journal Pediatrics that the US government spends more than $200 million a year on abstinence-only programs and virginity pledges, but that five years after 16 year-olds took virginity pledges, they were less likely to use birth control or condoms in the past year and less likely to use birth control during the last sexual encounter than non-pledgers. Kohler et al found that adolescents who received a comprehensive sexual education rather than an abstinence-only or no sexual education were less likely to get pregnant.
If one of our goals as a society is to prevent unwanted teen pregnancy, then abstinence-only sexual education should not receive funding priority by the government agencies: we should only pay for what works.
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