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Study Confirms Flaws with Abstinence Programs

Statement from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

As reported in the Spring 2004 issue of RCRC’s Faith & Choices newsletter, a new report confirms that federally funded abstinence education programs contain false and misleading information about contraception, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.

The report from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), said that 11 of the 13 most widely used programs underestimate the effectiveness of condoms in preventing pregnancy and the spread of disease, exaggerate the prevalence of emotional and physical distress following abortion, blur science and religion or get fundamental scientific facts wrong. These programs are used in 25 states.

The abstinence programs have been embraced by President Bush. They will receive $170 million in the current government spending year, more than double what the government was spending when Bush took office in 2001. The abstinence curriculum may not include instruction in contraceptive use as a condition of federal funding.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other researchers have found that consistent and correct condom use does protect against transmissions of many STDs, the report said.

Some curriculums also rely on what Waxman called damaging stereotypes about boys and girls, including that girls care less about achievement and their futures.

As of 1999, one-third of all schools in the country were teaching abstinence exclusively, according to surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

Abstinence-only programs rely on a fear-based curriculum to “scare” students away from all sexual activity while simultaneously promoting the belief that the only proper context for sex is marriage. For instance, students in McLennan County, Texas, are told that it’s not uncommon for women to have genital warts “as large as two fists” hanging from their genitalia as a result of premarital sex and that using condoms “is like playing Russian roulette. There is a greater risk of condom failure than the bullet being in the chamber.”

The full report is online at http://democrats.reform.house.gov.

Want information on church-based sex education programs making a difference?  Visit my post Oregon Churches Teaching Sex Education and the web site for Our Whole Lives - Sexuality and Our Faith, a program started by the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Church.

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