Saving The World Through Abstinence

Well, about the only program getting increased funding in the Bu$h budget is abstinence only sex classes (leaving out the word "education" intentional there). It’s well known this doesn’t work, but hey, just like attacking queers, it makes the Christian Right feel good. I’m not talking anecdotal evidence here. Study after study has proven that abstinence only actually increases teen pregnancy…but the right wing has a well established history of ignoring science. (Read "Intelligent Design")

In a column in the NY Times, Nicholas D. Kristof writes, "Other developed countries focus much more on contraception. The upshot is that while teenagers in the U.S. have about as much sexual activity as teenagers in Canada or Europe, Americans girls are four times as likely as German girls to become pregnant, almost five times as likely as French girls to have a baby, and more than seven times as likely as Dutch girls to have an abortion. Young Americans are five times as likely to have H.I.V. as young Germans, and teenagers’ gonorrhea rate is 70 times higher in the U.S. than in the Netherlands or France."

Of course, whoever said we were a "developed country?"

In contrast, there’s plenty of evidence that abstinence-plus programs – which encourage abstinence but also teach contraception – delay sex and increase the use of contraception. So, at a time when we’re cutting school and health programs, why should we pour additional tax money into abstinence-only initiatives, which are likely to lead to more pregnancies, more abortions and more kids with AIDS? Now, that’s a scandal, and you thought the Clinton year’s were about scandals.