Abstinence-Only Vs. Comprehensive Sex Ed

Although the controversy over sexuality education is being played out in a number of ways, the abstinence-only movement is clearly having the biggest impact. Abstinence-only programs are reportedly used in about 25% of the nation’s roughly 16,000 school districts. Among the most popular: “Sex Respect.” (See the related story on Sex Respect.)

Based on fundamentalist Christian beliefs, they teach that abstinence is the only way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. The programs rely on fear tactics that, in effect, tell adolescents they are putting their lives at risk if they engage in premarital sex. “They tell kids they’re going to go blind, get a disease, never be able to get pregnant, and ultimately die,” said Monica Rodriguez, SIECUS’ director of education. “That’s it. That’s how they get kids to be abstinent.”

Experts say the approach does not work. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit group that conducts reproductive health research, policy analysis and public education, teens who have participated in abstinence-only programs may be at greater risk for pregnancy and STDs once they become sexually active because they lack enough accurate information to protect themselves.

According to a 1996 report by the Institute, 56% of young women and 73% of young men have had intercourse by age 18. In response, comprehensive programs discuss abstinence in a broader context, giving youth who choose to become sexually active the information they need to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. They also emphasize skills that kids need to truly “say no.” “They learn how to get up the guts to say no, how to say it, negotiate it, stick to it,” said Rodriguez.

Advocates of comprehensive sexuality education agree with Rodriguez, who says the federal government’s funding of abstinence-only education is “dominating the discussion and energy around sexuality education.” In Rodriguez’s words, “Money talks.”

Conservatives first tried, unsuccessfully, to channel federal funds to abstinence-only programs as part of an amendment to the 1994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. They then turned their attention to health policy. By fall of 1995, language calling for $200 million in funding for abstinence-only education had been inserted in an early version of welfare reform legislation then being debated in Congress. The proposal included a detailed, restrictive definition of abstinence-only education, describing it in part as any program that had “as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity.” The proposal went nowhere, largely because of an unpopular provision that would have taken the money from existing Maternal and Child Health Block Grants.

But conservative groups did not give up and ultimately succeeded in pressuring legislators — among them former Sen. Robert Dole — to insert an abstinence-only education provision in the final version of the welfare reform bill that was passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton in late 1996. Under this provision, $50 million a year was made available to states through the Maternal and Child Health Bureau to administer abstinence-only sexuality education programs from 1998 through 2002. Programs can target children, teens and young adults, and may be administered by schools, public agencies, or community-based organizations. States must match every four federal dollars with three of their own, bringing the total amount of public money available annually to about $88 million.

Daley of SIECUS traces the religious right’s ultimate success to two important lessons learned from their earlier, unsuccessful attempts to legislate abstinence-only programs. “Because it’s generally accepted that it’s not the federal government’s role to dictate [curriculum] content, they made an end run around education policy and worked through the health policy tradition,” he said. “They also learned that when there’s public debate on this issue, they lose. The stealth approach works.”

Deanna Duby, education director of the People for the American Way Foundation, attributed passage of the legislation to the religious right’s growing Congressional power and political sophistication. “We don”t have that many friends … to stand up on the floor of Congress and say, “I”m opposed to abstinence education.”