The Abstinence Clearinghouse Blog

Dr. Ruth Helps Prove Contraception Education Doesn’t Work

MSNBC.com and Zogby International, with help from Dr. Ruth Westheimer, released survey results this week showing that despite the efforts of contraception educators, roughly 61 percent of adults neglect to ask their sexual partners about their STD status before engaging in sexual activity. With more than 56,000 adults answering the online study, this survey is considered one of the largest ever conducted in the United States.

Key survey results:
• White or Hispanic individuals were less likely (38 and 40 percent, respectively) to discuss their STD status with a partner than were African Americans (44 percent).
• At least half of all participants are concerned about contracting herpes from outercourse.
• Most survey respondents reported being in long-term relationships, with over 60 percent indicating having sex within the last day or week. 25 percent of monogamous couples report having sex more than three times a week.

Source: MSNBC, “Many in U.S. playing a risky game of sex,” October 10, 2005, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9574303/

Aim for Success a Success in Texas
With the second-highest teen birth rate in the nation, Texas needs abstinence education. Aim for Success is meeting that challenge with honesty and passion and is seeing results. This week, Aim for Success was featured in a special story on virginity in the Dallas Morning News.

“What kind of heart do you want to give?” asks Lauren Lowery, speaker for Aim for Success. With information, object lessons, real life stories and humor, Aim for Success is spreading the abstinence until marriage message. Despite the demonstrated success of programs like Aim for Success, others continue to argue for health policies and programs that put children at risk.

Interviewed in the Dallas Morning News article, Advocate for Youth president James Wagoner claimed that abstinence education puts young people at risk by encouraging virginity. Contraceptive-based sex education supporters have long made the incorrect assumption that young people are ignorant and that abstinence education is simply a “just say no” strategy. However, authentic abstinence education encourages avoiding all sexual activity, including outercourse, until marriage so that dreams may be reached, goals fulfilled, and hearts kept intact.

(Source: Dallas Morning News, “Can abstinence-oriented education really work in a sex-drenched society?” October 6, 2005, http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/family/stories/100605dnlivNFM_sex.1647369c.html)

Premarital Sex May Cause Depression Says New Study in Prestigious American Journal of Preventive Medicine

In a study of extreme significance, the authors of “Which Comes First in Adolescence – Sex and Drugs or Depression?” have found significant scientific evidence that premarital sex may cause depression. As the study states, “Engaging in sex and drug behaviors places adolescents, and especially girls, at risk for future depression.” By identifying that sex may be causal to depression, the authors state that depression in adulthood may be prevented in some cases by eliminating sexual activity in adolescence.

If the medical profession cares about prevention and the future health of young men and women, abstinence education should be considered by all to be sound public health policy. Will this study and its results be noticed and spread or will it be carefully ignored? These crucial questions may mean the difference between life and death for millions of Americans.

Source: D.D. Hallfors, et al., “Which Came First in Adolescence – Sex and Drugs or Depression?” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2005; 29 (3):163-170.

How can America Reduce Violent Crime and Gang Activity? Encourage Marriage.

A review released in a September iMAPP Policy Brief examining 23 recent U.S. studies published in peer-reviewed journals found that family structure has a profound effect on crime and delinquency. Of the studies, all but three agreed that children from non-intact or single-parent households had higher rates of crime and/or delinquency. One particular study reviewed was even more specific, stating “adolescents in married, two-biological-parent families generally fare better than children in any of the family types examined here, including single-mother, cohabiting stepfather, and married stepfather families. The advantage of marriage appears to exist primarily when the child is the biological offspring of both parents.(1)

Several studies focused on gang participation found similar results. One study summarized the dangers of single parent homes by saying, “the single most important variable [in ‘gang centrality’] is the family’s structure….the greater the number of parents in the household, the lower the reported gang centrality.”(2)

Foortnotes
1. Manning, Wendy, & Lamb, Kathleen A. Journal of Marriage & Family, 65 (2003) p.890.
2. Lynskey, Dana Peterson, et al. Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 51 (2000), p.10.

Source: iMAPP Policy Brief, “Can Married Parents Prevent Crime?” September 21, 2005, http://www.marriagedebate.com/pdf/imapp.crimefamstructure.pdf