The Abstinence Clearinghouse Blog

A recent study . . . found that students who received the abstinence program were 46 percent less likely to initiate sex in one year than students not in the program. Ellen Goodman’s Jan. 3 column about abstinence education, “Abstinence-only sex ed has failed the nation’s teens,” is both misleading and inaccurate.

The term “abstinence-only” is a misnomer. It was devised by critics who oppose abstinence education programs that provide youth with valuable sexual health information, including skills that help them avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections by practicing abstinence. Free to Be is an organization that has equipped Sonoma County youth with character-based, age-appropriate and medically accurate abstinence education since 1992. There is nothing “only” about the whole-person health approach of Free to Be.

Through our sixth-to-12th grade curricula and our teen panel presentation, trained youth educators address relevant teen issues including: developing healthy relationships, establishing goals for the future, understanding possible emotional consequences of sexual activity, gaining knowledge about sexually transmitted infections, setting boundaries in relationships and practicing refusal skills.

In the early 1990s, after a decade of what advocates call “comprehensive” sex education (CSE), the teen birth rate had risen to an alarming level. As a result, programs across the country began taking another approach. Free to Be and other organizations began challenging teens to place greater value on their health and future and to postpone sexual activity until marriage, while providing knowledge, tools and support to equip them for such a decision.

During the 1990s, the teen birth rate declined, with a 38 percent drop among 15- to 17-year-old girls between 1990 and 2002, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The federal government recognized abstinence education to be an effective primary prevention strategy and, under Presidents Clinton and Bush, supported the approach by increasing the small amount of funding that had been available, leaving the funding for CSE programs intact. Funding for abstinence education is approximately $176 million per year, which is one-third the amount provided for other approaches. Yet parents prefer abstinence education over comprehensive sex educations by a 2-1 margin. (See Zogby Poll, 2007)

Goodman is ill-informed about the grant guidelines for the abstinence programs, which she strongly criticizes. Measuring “virginity pledges” is not a grant requirement, but medical accuracy is. The “archive of research” to which Goodman referred does not exist, since funding for rigorous professional evaluation has not been available until recently.

All currently federally funded abstinence programs are measuring attitudinal, knowledge and behavioral outcomes and initial positive results are being reported. A recent study of a program of the Virginia Abstinence Education Initiative found that students who received the abstinence program were 46 percent less likely to initiate sex in one year than students not in the program.

Personal stories confirm teens are listening and are impacted by the message of abstinence programs like Free to Be.

The 20-something woman who was taking my order for Internet service told me that her boyfriend had gone through our program in high school and had the Free to Be logo displayed on his bulletin board.

A mother of a high school-aged girl called our office to thank us because her daughter, after participating in one of our sessions on building healthy relationships, had decided not to give in to the peer pressure from her sexually active friends and instead reconfirmed her decision to wait.

After seeing one of our teen panel presentations, a student in a Sonoma County high school wrote, “Before today, I didn’t know about abstinence. Now that I do, I not only respect it, but I am going to choose renewed abstinence.”

Abstinence education strategies are working. The proportion of teens initiating sex has declined 13 percent from 1991-2005. Free to Be’s peer educators express the confidence and freedoms they gain from making the safest sexual choice. These youth are role models, making a difference throughout Sonoma County. It would be a grave mistake to eliminate a strategy that works 100 percent of the time.

Sue Bisbee is executive director of Free to Be in Santa Rosa.