Unsurprising, But Still Depressing

Unsurprising, But Still Depressing

This March 11, 2008 BBC report:

One in four teenage girls in the United States has a sexually-transmitted disease, a study has indicated.

The study, by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found an even higher prevalence of STDs among black girls.

Researchers analysed data from a nationally representative sample of 838 US girls aged 14 to 19.

A virus that causes cervical cancer - HPV - was the most common, followed by chlamydia, trichomoniasis and herpes.

The CDC says the study is the first in its kind to examine the prevalence of common sexually transmitted diseases among adolescent girls.

It found that nearly half of the African-American girls surveyed had at least one STD, while the rate was 20% among white and Mexican-American teenagers.

Human papillomavirus, or HPV, affected 18% of the girls surveyed, chlamydia 4%, trichomoniasis 2.5%, and herpes simplex virus 2%.

Liberals are crowing that abstinence education (which this April 16, 2007 U.K. Guardian article indicates the Clinton Administration actually started) doesn't work. I find when I search scholar.google.com that there are some studies that show that it does make a difference, although sometimes with mixed results, such as this one:

Results: Intervention students reported increases in knowledge and abstinence beliefs, but decreases in intentions to have sex and to use condoms. Intervention did not influence sexual initiation or condom use; however, intervention students who had sex during the evaluation period reported fewer sexual episodes and fewer partners than did controls. Conclusions: Abstinence-until-marriage interventions can influence knowledge, beliefs, and intentions, and among sexually experienced students, may reduce the prevalence of casual sex. Reduction in condom use intentions merits further study to determine long-term implications.

More typical are the results of studies like this, evaluating ten different state programs--only five of which actually tried to measure changes in sexual behavior:

Sexual Behavior—Five programs measured long-term impacts on sexual behavior.

No evaluation demonstrated any impact on reducing teens’ sexual behavior at follow-up, three to 17 months after the program ended (Arizona, California, Minnesota, Missouri, or Pennsylvania’s LaSalle Program).

I will tell you that as much as I would like to think that abstinence-only education can work, it is sailing into a hurricane. The mass media strongly, strongly promote early sex. The very high rates of infection among black teenaged girls tells you that there is something terribly broken in the black community (as Bill Cosby keeps saying). Even if the media weren't promoting it, teenagers don't need any encouragement towards sex--that's pretty much the default setting for human beings. I've read studies of Puritan New England that demonstrate that 16% of brides were pregnant by the time they married.

Where I lived in Sonoma County, to my surprise, the school districts promoted something that the county schools superintendent called "abstinence-best" education. The theory was that it was good to tell kids to wait--and also to tell them what to do if they weren't going to wait.

You don't have to be religious to see that there are some significant advantages to delaying sex.

1. Think of how organized and clean the average 14 year old keeps his or her room, and then ask yourself, "Would you trust this kid to take birth control pills or use a condom correctly?"

2. A friend made the observation once that teenaged boys are willing to trade intimacy for sex; teenaged girls are willing to trade sex for love. There's a lot of truth to that. Teenaged years can be terribly confusing, with enormous highs and lows. Even waiting a couple of years to mature can make a huge difference, especially because contraception's availability has created a difficult situation for many girls, who are badgered into sex earlier than they really want to be.

3. From a health standpoint, waiting is a good thing. I was shocked to see even Planned Parenthood admit this:

Women who abstain until their 20s — and who have fewer partners in their lifetimes — may have certain health advantages over women who do not.

The harsh reality is that in a culture that glorifies sexuality, relatively few kids are going to wait until marriage. Relatively few even wait until they are 18. They need to be aware of contraceptive techniques. They also need to be aware that there are risks, and that no method of contraception works as well as abstinence. Condoms break; condoms fail to stop the spread of HPV; non-barrier methods create risks of potentially lethal STDs; and many of the alternatives to sexual intercourse include significant risks of disease and pregnancy.

This is definitely an unpleasant situation. You don't want to encourage kids to be sexually active--but contraception is better than abortion. Contraception is also better than a shotgun marriage, or illegitimacy.