| By Kay Steiger - Aug 3rd, 2007 at 10:47 am EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Shocker. The BBC reports today that a meta study (a kind of study of studies) published in the British Medical Journal showed that overall abstinence only education has no impact on the sexual lives of young people aged 10-21. The article said:
They found abstinence programmes had no negative or positive impact on the rates of sex infections or unprotected sex, the British Medical Journal said.
Abstinence programmes are popular in the US and have supporters in the UK.
The funny thing about this is the reporting. It's sort of reported with a "silly Americans and their attachment to abstinence education" attitude. It's true, though. For years Congress has been pouring money into such programs for years, and last month Congress even approved an increase in abstinence funding in exchange for more comprehensive sex education funding.
Among the scientific community, it's obvious that these programs just don't work. Additionally, I've always felt it reeked of moralizing to young people whose families may not share such conservative views on sex.

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we told her the correct version and laughed all night.
but reaalllllly ,
adults have power to make kids believe the ridiculous.
poor girl would have gotten pregnant and never known she'd had actual baby producing sex.
sex ed and all the details and teaching responsiblity and values self worth and goals prevent pregnancy.
not silly stories or no information.
knowledge is power .
silence is just stupid.