Abstaining from Abstinence Education

March 23~Yesterday, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) announced that he wants to end state funding for abstinence education, a move that would eliminate about a half million dollars’ worth of positive programs. Strickland said, “Over the long term, there’s no data that show they prevent, in a statistical sense, sexual activity outside of marriage.”

However, stacks of peer-reviewed research are showing the direct impact of abstinence education, including a peer-reviewed study on America’s largest and oldest abstinence program, Best Friends. In Adolescent and Family Health, Dr. Robert Lerner’s analysis of urban D.C. participants found that, “Despite the fact that [these students come from schools that]… are located in Wards that have higher rates of out-of-wedlock births, girls who attended the program are substantially less likely to…have sex than a comparable sample… The relative odds of 120 to 1 of a [high school] Diamond Girl abstaining from sex is a result so strong that it is unheard of in practically any empirical research.”

Elsewhere, a U.S. District Judge has decided to strike down a 1998 law, supported by FRC, that protects children from online pornography. Judge Lowell Reed, Jr. suggests that parents invest in software filters because they are “far more effective than the [Child Online Protection Act].”

Following the judge’s advice would be like dispensing with water treatment plants and asking every family just to filter their own drinking water.

Tony Perkins heads the Family Research Council. This article is excerpted from the Washington Update he compiles for the FRC.