ABSTINENCE (Josh McDowell research 2006 to present) “HOW TO END THE WAR OVER SEX ED” “Most students won’t wait until they get married to have sex, so they need to be told more than ‘Just say no.’ But with 66% of teenagers nationally saying they wish they had waited longer before having sex, they’re also looking for more than just medically accurate information about birth control.” “Douglas Kirby, a neutral analyst who has studied sex-education programs for more than three decades, says more evaluations of abstinence-only programs have found ‘no impact on sexual behavior.’ However, nearly half the comprehensive programs that have been studied reduced sexual risk in three areas: delaying the age at which teens first have sex, reducing the number of sexual partners they have and increasing their use of condoms.” “In a 2004 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 95% of parents of middle-school students said contraceptive methods were ‘appropriate topics,’ for school health classes.” (Amy Sullivan/Anderson, “How to End The War Over Sex Ed,” TIME, March 30, 2009, p40-43.) ______________________ “LIKE A VIRGIN: THE PRESS TAKE ON TEENAGE SEX” “‘Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex,’ screams CBS News. ‘Virginity pledges don't mean much,’ adds CNN. ‘Study questions virginity pledges,’ says the Chicago Tribune. ‘Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds,’ heralds the Washington Post. ‘Virginity Pledges Fail to Trump Teen Lust in Look at Older Data,’ reports Bloomberg.” “In fact, the only way the study's author, Janet Elise Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins University, could reach such results was by comparing teens who take a virginity pledge with a very small subset of other teens: those who are just as religious and conservative as the pledge-takers. The study is called ‘Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers,’ and it was published in the Jan. 1 edition of Pediatrics.” “The real difference is their more conservative and religious home and social environment. As she notes, when you compare both groups in this study with teens at large, the behavioral differences are striking.” William McGurn, “Like a Virgin: The Press Take on Teenage Sex,” The Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2009; (http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB123120095259855597.html ______________________ “MISGUIDED MEDIA” “Misguided Media Irene Ericksen of the Institute for Research and Evaluation says media reports continually claim abstinence education is a failure and comprehensive sex-ed is the only way to reduce teen pregnancies and promote safe-sex. They continually site a federal study riddled with myths and Abstinence – Research 2006 to present
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did not find abstinence education effective. Ericksen points out, ‘Actually 64% of the studies of comprehensive sex-ed in the schools have found they have not been effective at increasing teen condom use.’” (OneNewsNow.com 5/19/09) (Edited by Gary D. Foster, The Foster Letter – Religious Market Update, June 10, 2009) ______________________ “ABSTINENCE TRAINING WORKS” “A University of Pennsylvania study found teaching abstinence education to young teens in public schools reduces their sexual behavior and delays the starting point of teen sexual relations.” (The Foster Letter: Religious Market Update, Gary D. Foster Consulting, September 25, 2006 [ PWB 9/8/06]: 2) ______________________ “ABSTINENCE UP” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials, Wade Horn and Jeffrey Trimbath, publicly defend abstinence education programs. They claim the goal of such programs is to delay teens’ introduction to sexual activity, noting reliable statistics indicate that’s exactly what it takes to reduce teen pregnancies. They cite a recent national Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy study which found that if teenagers delay the onset of sexual activity and reduce the number of partners they have, they are much less likely to become pregnant or get someone pregnant, compared to those who don’t. Teens are adopting abstinence as their personal standard, and ‘According to the CDC, the percentage of teens who report that they have had sex has decreased from 54% in the early ‘90s, to 46% today.’ Today a majority of teens are abstinent (BP News 8/8/06)” (Gary D. Foster, “Religious Market Update,” August 10, 2006, p4) ______________________ “YOUTHS SUPPORT ABSTINENCE AS SEX EDUCATION” “According to a new Harris Poll, 56 percent of people ages 18 to 24, and 60 percent of those 25 to 29 think abstinence programs effectively reduce or prevent the occurrence of HIV/AIDS. Another 49 percent of people ages 18 to 24 and 52 percent of those ages 25 to 29 say the programs reduce or prevent unwanted pregnancies.” (Jennifer Harper, “Youths support abstinence as sex education,” The Washington Times, January 2006, www.washtimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20060122-120548-3633r) ______________________
Abstinence – Research 2006 to present
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