New York Times Editorial, Opinion Piece Examine Impact Of Abstinence-Only Programs

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Abortion;  Pregnancy / Obstetrics;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 02 Feb 2010 - 4:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute examining teenage pregnancy, birth and abortion rates "suggests the wisdom" of President Obama's decision to "redirect sex-education financing from an abstinence-only approach to broader, more-effective programs that provide information to young people about contraceptives, pregnancy and sexually transmitted [infections]," a New York Times editorial states.

According to the Times, the study found that the pregnancy rates among teens ages 15 through 19 rose by 3% from 2005 to 2006, marking "a troubling departure after more than a decade of declining teenage pregnancy." The study found a 1% increase in the teenage abortion rate "for the first time in more than a decade," the editorial says. "It remains to be seen whether these increases represent a longer-term trend," the editorial adds, noting that "a number of factors contributed to the upticks," including declining contraception use by teenagers.

However, Guttmacher "also sees a link between the rise in the teenage pregnancy and abortion rates and the Bush administration's reliance on abstinence-only sex education programs that bar teaching about contraception," the editorial continues, adding, "This is not an unreasonable inference." The editorial concludes that the study is "timely" because "[a]s part of a broader health care reform effort, abstinence-only advocates are trying hard to restore financing for the narrow, ineffective and fundamentally dishonest approach" (New York Times, 1/30).

Most Sex Ed Programs Have Little Effect on Teen Sex, Times Opinion Piece Says

Although "evidence suggests that many abstinence-only programs have little impact on teenage sexual behavior," columnist Ross Douthat argues in the Times, "most sex education programs of any kind have an ambiguous effect, at best, on whether and how teens have sex." According to Douthat, the "rare initiatives that show impressive results tend to be defined more by their emphasis on building social capital than by their insistence on either chastity or contraception." A 2001 Guttmacher study "found that 'most studies of school-based and school-linked health centers revealed no effect on student sexual behavior,'" according to Douthat. He writes that the "exceptions included an abstinence-oriented program with a strong community-service requirement, and a comprehensive program that essentially provided life coaches as well as sex ed."

Although "[n]one of this renders the abstinence-versus-contraception debate pointless," it shows that "we should understand it more as a battle over community values than as an argument about public policy," Douthat continues. He writes that the "real problem with federal financing for abstinence-based education" is that it "drags the national government into a debate that should remain intensely local," adding that federal funds "should be available to states and localities without any ideological strings attached" (Douthat, New York Times, 2/1).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2010 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

• Additional
• References
• Citations