The Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine came out with a study on Monday that claimed abstinence-only education could work. The study was done in urban public schools with 662 African-American students in 6 and 7 grade over a period of 24 months. The results showed that of the students that were given abstinence-only education, 1/3 of them had started having sex after 2 years, compared to the students that were given other types of sex education of which 1/2 of them had started having sex.
This landmark study is big news for abstinence-only education proponents because if gives them some scientific evidence that abstinence-only education might work. The Obama Administration has just come out with a project that would give grants to pregnancy prevention programs as long as they are scientifically based.
One study that tests only a small and not diverse group of students is not enough to prove that abstinence-only education works. There have been numerous studies like this that prove comprehensive sex education works but that has not been enough to prove it is the best solution. Abstinence-only education proponents have been searching for some tiny bit of proof and now that they've found it they're going to run with this for as long as possible.
Read more about the study at The Washington Post
photo courtesy of M1khaela via Flickr
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