ENDEAVOUR FORUM NEWSLETTER No. 116, OCTOBER 2004

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“Abstinence education is working,” says Leslee Unruh, President of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, USA.  “Increasing amounts of new, scientific research is showing that abstinence education creates teens who abstain.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that  teen sexual activity and teen pregnancy have been declining steadily over the last several years.   Peer-reviewed, published studies show that abstinence education is responsible for these  decreases.” 

A look at the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) study, funded by  the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, found that teens who abstain from  sexual activity have healthier lives than those who are sexually active.  Sexually active teens are at greater risk for suicide, depression, pre-marital pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease  (STDs), infertility, poverty, single parenthood, marital instability, divorces, and generally  reporting less happiness than abstinent teens. 

None of this matters to groups like the National Abortion Rights Action League or the Sexuality  Information and Education Council of the  US (SIECUS).  They are behind a state-by-state campaign to eliminate abstinence-only  programs from public schools.  They draft legislation that requires  sex-education curricula to be "medically accurate", a term critics say is political code for "not  abstinence-only".  They want to drive authentic abstinence programs  out of the classroom and replace them with  the latest version of "safe sex".  After including the term "medically accurate" in legislation on  sex-education programs, "safe-sex" promoters like Planned Parenthood are set up as arbiters of  the meaning of "medically accurate".  Planned Parenthood president, Gloria Feldt,  listed "medically accurate sexuality education" at the top of a five-point battle plan for fighting the Bush Administration public-health agenda.  Clearly the sex-with-condom promoters feel threatened  by the abstinence message.  It’s bad for the abortion business.

Bill Muehlenberg 

Member Organisation, World Council for Life and Family

NGO in Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC of the UN