(This week’s entry is by a guest columnist, so to speak…Aimee Conat, my wife. This is something she wrote for one of her college classes recently and it’s also relevant to the overall tone of this here blog, so…with her gracious permission I am reprinting it here in its entirety. Enjoy.)

A Complete Education: Why Public Schools Need Comprehensive Sex Ed Programs

Aimee McVay Conat


A Complete Education: Why Public Schools Need Comprehensive Sex Ed Programs

Don’t drink. Don’t smoke. Don’t take drugs. Don’t get pregnant. Public schools teach teenagers about the consequences of drinking, the health risks of smoking, and the dangers of doing drugs, yet teenagers remain woefully ignorant about how to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Public schools should adopt comprehensive sexual education programs that teach abstinence as being the only way to prevent pregnancy 100%, and teach birth control.

Sexual education is a hot topic in the United States right now. Most people fall on one side of the debate or the other: those that feel an abstinence-only program is the sole answer to preventing unplanned pregnancy, and those that feel a more comprehensive birth control program should be the standard. The federal government has put nearly $170 million towards abstinence-only programs in recent years according to a report prepared for Representative Henry A. Waxman on the content of federally funded abstinence-only education programs. This report discovered that most of these programs are giving incorrect statistics on condom failure and exaggerating the effects of having an abortion. They are also infecting the minds of teenagers with spurious information on the health risks of having sex (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004). Why kNOw, an abstinence-only curriculum taught in seven communities, states that “Twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create this new individual” (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004, ii). However, there are not twenty-four chromosomes in each parent; there are twenty-three. How can programs that cannot even get basic genetic facts correct hope to help prevent unplanned pregnancies in teenagers? The answer is, they cannot and they do not.

One of the gross misrepresentations in abstinence-only programs is the failure rate of birth control in particular condoms. They are also the most readily available to teenagers. In a study conducted from 1991 to 2003, Santelli, Morrow, Anderson, & Lindberg (2006) found that condoms were the most common form of birth control among teenagers. They also discovered that condom use increased from 38% to 58%, while the risk of pregnancy declined 21%. Yet, the parent’s book for Choosing the Best, an abstinence-only curriculum taught in public school districts says, “When used by real people in real-life situations, research confirms that 14 percent of the women who use condoms scrupulously for birth control become pregnant within a year.” The rate of failure for “scrupulous” use is actually 2% to 3 % (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004, p. 12). While the 14% failure rate is technically accurate, instructing teenagers to use condoms every time they have sex and the proper way to use them would ensure that condoms continue to lower the number of unplanned pregnancies. Not surprisingly, most of the abstinence-only programs are strongly against abortion. Teaching correct condom use would lead to fewer unplanned pregnancies, which, in turn, leads to fewer abortions. Educators run the risk of teens choosing to bypass condoms altogether if the message they are receiving is they don’t work anyway.

Because abstinence-only curriculums are anti-abortion, they exaggerate the effect of having an abortion on a woman’s body and mental state. Me, My World, My Future tells students “Studies show that five to ten percent of women will never again be pregnant after having a legal abortion.” The same program also tells students “Premature birth, a major cause of mental retardation, is increased following the abortion of the first pregnancy” and “Tubal and cervical pregnancies are increased following abortions” (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004, pp. 13-14). Yet several obstetric textbooks refute all of these claims. The textbooks explain “fertility is not altered by an elective abortion”, that abortion “results in no increased incidence of … preterm delivery”, and “ectopic pregnancies are not increased” (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004, p. 13-14). Furthermore, these young girls are also being told that women who have abortions are more likely to commit to suicide according to the same program, Me, My World, My Future. However, a study of women who had abortions found that “although women may experience some distress immediately after having an abortion, the experience has no independent effect on their psychological well-being over time” (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004). Why put a teenage girl through more mental distress in dealing with her unplanned pregnancy when teaching her how to use birth control would have prevented the pregnancy in the first place?

In her article “Teaching Abstinence Reduces Teen Pregnancy”, Jennifer Hurley (2000) says that comprehensive sex education is actually injurious to teenagers. She believes that teaching birth control “completely undermines any attempt to promote abstinence” by sending the message, “You shouldn’t have sex, but if you choose to have it, use a condom.” She is right. That is the entire point of comprehensive sex education. One should ask Ms. Hurley, “What about students who are already sexually active?” Teaching them abstinence might be an exercise in futility. While some might rethink their behavior and choose not to have sex again until marriage, most of them will continue having sexual relations. As abstinence-only programs teach no kind of birth control, teenagers receive a disservice when the fact that they are having sex is ignored and they are not taught how to prevent pregnancy.

Of all the fallacies that an abstinence-only program perpetuates, the most disturbing are the disingenuous facts taught about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Chlamydia, and cervical cancer. Abstinence-only programs tap into the teenagers’ fear by telling them that having sex will lead to contracting these diseases. They are only partially correct: having unprotected sex could lead to these diseases. One curriculum tells its students that “the leading medical complication from HPV” is cervical cancer (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004, p. 19). While the human papillomavirus (HPV) can lead to the disease, it is rare and is treatable if young women start getting pap smears once they become sexually active (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004). Another curriculum goes so far as to take information from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and translate it into invalid statistics. For example, the CDC discovered that “41% of female teens with HIV reportedly acquired it through heterosexual contact” (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004, p. 20). FACTS, another abstinence-only program, changes the wording of the study to say, “41% of heterosexual female teens have HIV” (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004, p. 20). That is vastly different from the original study. Sexual Health Today, Slide teaches that “atherosclerotic plaque” is caused by Chlamydia, which is contracted by having sex (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004). However, the bacterium that causes the STD Chlamydia is entirely different from the respiratory Chlamydia that can cause hardened arteries (United States House of Representatives Committee, 2004). All of these claims are exaggerated and cannot be supported by any medical studies. Preying on the teenagers’ fear of death instead of educating them about how to prevent diseases is not a good way the keep them from having sexual intercourse.

Abstinence-only programs narrowly focus on one belief: teenagers who are told not to have sex will not have sex. As the generations that went before have shown, teenagers have sex. Teenagers have sex without the use of any form of birth control. Teenagers have babies. Teenagers have abortions. Telling them not to have sex is not working, and it is time that more was done about it. Making comprehensive birth control programs the standard in public schools gives students all of their options. It teaches them that abstinence is the only 100% way to prevent pregnancy, and concomitantly gives them the information on how to prevent pregnancy if they do choose to have sex. Teenage pregnancy rates have been declining since 1991 (Santelli et al., 2006). The Alan Guttmacher Institutes (AGI) attributes this to teenagers choosing better birth control, as well as increased abstinence. AGI found that “[A]pproximately three-quarters of the drop resulted from changes in the behavior of sexually experienced teenagers” and that “one-quarter of the decline in teenage pregnancy … was due to increased abstinence.” (Darroch, J.E., Singh, S., 1999, pp.8,11 ). In essence, for fifteen years, some teenagers have been showing responsibility by either choosing to have sex later in life or, if they choose to have sex, they are protecting themselves from pregnancy. Why not continue this trend by giving teenagers even more education on preventing pregnancy instead of trying to frighten them into abstinence with falsehoods and lies or just telling them “Don’t”?

References

Darroch, J.E. & Singh, S. (1999) Why is teenage pregnancy declining? The roles of abstinence,
sexual activity and contraceptive use. Occasional Report, New York: The Alan Guttmacher Institute, No.1. Retrieved June 30, 2006 from www.guttmacher.org

Hurley, J.A., (2000) Teaching abstinence reduces teen pregnancy. Teen Pregnancy, Retrieved July 1, 2006 from Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center

Santelli, J.S., Morrow, B., Anderson, J.E., & Lindberg, L.D. (2006) Contraceptive use and pregnancy risk among U.S. high school students, 1991-2003.


Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 38(2), 106-111. Retrieved June 19, 2006, from www.guttmacher.org


United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform – Minority Staff Special Investigations Division. (2004). The content of federally funded abstinence-only education programs. Retrieved June 3, 2006 from www.democrats.reform.house.gov