Just Saying No

Abstinence education must be working. The educational establishment is trying to fight it.

“Sex education must emphasize abstinence even though no scientific data show that this curriculum approach helps reduce AIDS or teen pregnancy,” LynNell Hancock, an associate professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, writes of the federal No Child Left Behind program in the March/April 2005 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review.

For his part, U. S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., whose constituency includes Michael Jackson, put out a study alleging the failures of abstinence education. The conservative Heritage Foundation think tank responded with a point-by-point rebuttal.

But what does the record show on abstinence education? “There are ten published peer-reviewed journals showing that abstinence education leads to less out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases,” Dr. Wade Horn [pictured] of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said at a recent Capitol Hill press conference. By way of contrast, there are 29 peer-reviewed studies on the more widely-used comprehensive sex education that emphasizes contraception. In these studies, Dr. Horn says, the results are mixed.

At HHS, Dr. Horn serves as Assistant Secretary of the Children and Families division, presiding over a $47-billion budget. Dr. Horn delivered his remarks to a luncheon event sponsored by the Abstinence Clearinghouse.

Certainly, the record of the Cleveland, Ohio-based Operation Keepsake (OK), as laid out by its director, Mary Ann Mosack, is nothing short of stunning. The abstinence education program started in one school with 65 students in 1988 and now reaches 180 schools and 27,000 students in the Cleveland metropolitan area.

And, according to Mosack, OK beat Planned Parenthood (PP) in a head-to-head competition in Cleveland’s middle schools. The county let OK teach its course in 11 schools and allowed PP to instruct students in another 11 schools. Planned Parenthood not only promotes contraception but is the nation’s leading provider of abortions.

“After the research was in, the county gave us the lion’s share of local sex education funding,” Mosack says. The OK program, Mosack claimed, led to increased knowledge and a corresponding cessation of sexual activity among the young.

Mosack said that OK developed its program of courses, lectures and public service announcements because of the experiences of visitors to the local Crisis Pregnancy Center. Crisis Pregnancy Centers provide services to unmarried parents in order to encourage them to reject abortion.

“Every kid who came in to the Crisis Pregnancy Center said, ‘But I used a condom,’” according to Mosack. The Abstinence Clearinghouse network, of which OK is a part, boasts of affiliates in 99 countries.

Early in his presidency, Ronald Reagan fielded a question on birth control with one of his typically disarming responses. “Whatever happened to just saying No?,” President Reagan said. As on so many issues, he proved to be ahead of the curve simply by standing pat.