New Study Shows Abstinence Education Can Work

Last month, a study was released that is said to show that abstinence-only education can delay sexual activity without preventing future condom usage.

Researcher John B. Jemmott III of University of Pennsylvania’s Annenburg Public Policy Center performed a randomized controlled trial of 662 African-American sixth and seventh graders from middle schools in Philadelphia, Pa., according to the announcement.

Jemmott announced his findings at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada where abstinence programs are very unpopular. Many at the conference complained about the United States’ “ideologically-driven abstinence-until-marriage focus that places many at risk of needlessly contracting HIV” strategy around the world. According to WDC Media News, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Center said that even Bill Gates was booed at the conference when he mentioned abstinence and fidelity in the battle against AIDS.

At the conference, Jemmott urged people to recognize that not all abstinence messages are the same and they should not all be “thrown away,” but that politics and religion should be put aside and replaced with scientific evidence.

The study found that “adolescents who receive a scientifically based abstinence-only sex education program were less likely to have had sexual intercourse after two years than those receiving instruction on condom use that made no mention of abstinence,” according to the release.

Many, including former President Bill Clinton during the convention, have said that abstinence-only education makes teens less likely to use condoms in the future, but Jemmott found “no adverse effects on future condom use.”

“It did not reduce intentions to use condoms, it did not reduce beliefs about the efficacy of condoms, it did not decrease consistent condom use and it did not decrease condom use at last sexual [encounter],” Jemmott told CanWest News Service.

According to the same article, Jemmott’s intervention promoted abstinence until later in life when the person would be ready to handle consequences of a sexual relationship, included no mention of condoms [positive or negative] and involved role-play, videos and group discussions.

Julia A. Seymour is a staff writer for Accuracy in Academia.