End of Abstinence Education?

After years of fighting funding for abstinence education, liberal groups are heralding a new research study on several abstinence programs. The Department of Health and Human Services has released a report by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. on a handful of Title V, Section 510 programs.

Its findings, which have been radically exaggerated in the media, suggest that changes must be made to select abstinence programs to make them more effective. Tracking four elementary and middle school programs–less than one percent of the 700 abstinence programs that receive federal funding–Mathematica found little improvement in the percent of students who delayed sexual activity as a result of the curriculum.

While liberal leaders are salivating at the chance to replace abstinence funding with more dollars for Planned Parenthood’s empire, the research has obvious limitations. The four programs that Mathematica evaluated (beginning in 1999) have already been revised and improved, and they are by no means representative of abstinence education as a whole.

They also included no high school component–so one logical conclusion is that to achieve the greatest effectiveness, programs must be intensive and long-term, so that the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to reject sex before marriage are constantly reinforced–particularly in the pivotal high school years. Abstinence programs have faced the challenge of improving the services they deliver, and fortunately most have done so.

A recent HHS-sponsored conference in Baltimore unveiled evidence from more than two dozen other studies that abstinence programs are producing positive outcomes for youth. For every study that disparages the abstinence approach, there are many others that point to its success and suggest that effective, long-term programs should be given more funding–not less.

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