How can I say that birth control education doesn't work? my critics cry. Where's the data?
Here. The gold standard study of abstinence-only education is a longitudinal study begun in 2001. There was no significant difference between the students receiving abstinence education and the students receiving the ordinary programs in their school district. At least half of those programs had comprehensive contraception education.
It doesn't matter what you measure: STD awareness, assessment of birth control effectiveness, number of partners, age of first sexual intercourse, medical outcomes--there was simply no difference between the two groups. That indicates that children are not getting useful information either from abstinence-only programs or those focused on birth control.
You can find a more comprehensive list of the lack of contraceptive education effectiveness here.
The upshot: some programs seem effective, but when you do metanalysis,
you find that they're within the expected random variance.
This is less surprising than it sounds. In the 1950s, such programs undoubtedly would have been very effective. But these days, a kid who wants to get hold of birth control is very, very unlikely to be unaware where babies come from, or where they keep the birth control. Anyone who wants to know more can get on the web and Google it. Also, students pay as little attention to their teachers as possible. I remember in my extremely affluent high school being shocked by how little my classmates appeared to have retained from literally years of birth control-focused eduction.
Kids get pregnant because they have poor impulse control, hazy conceptions about the future, and possibly, parents who they are afraid will find birth control. None of these are problems that sex ed helps with. Moreover, as anyone who's ever been a Big Sister or similar can tell you, poor girls who have babies unfortunately too often do so because there's little reason not to, and they mistakenly believe that this will help them hold onto the baby's father. What they need is not more education about The Pill, but a better future to look forward to.
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Megan, I love you 'cause you have the balls to be vegan (unlike so many outspoken 'progressives'), but this is just silly. 72-year-old McCain makes the worst, most insulting choice for running mate ever in the history of America, and you quibble over sex ed.
My main criticism of "libertarians" is that they are only concerned with tax cuts. Not liberty, not fiscal sanity, not sound policy. Rather, they will just support whoever promises more tax cuts ... and who is most willing to sell the country to the corporations.
Kids get pregnant because they have [...] hazy conceptions about the future
Heh.
JMcCWtB:
Hope you dont mind me short-cutting your name. Perhaps, like other ideologies, there are economic libertarians, foreign policy libertarians, and social libertarians?
I believe the Ron Paul crew can be classified as foreign policy libertarians (since they did oppose this war, and the idea of using our military for damn near anything).
Not sure what social libertarians would be like.
Exactly, "John McCain," etc. How dare Megan talk about what she wants to talk about, just because it's her blog? Why should she address something that came up in the comments? She's supposed to be busy agreeing with you, darn it!
I never cease to be amazed by commenters who don't understand the medium of blogging and leave criticisms of the "why aren't you addressing MY issue right NOW" type. Maybe it comes from having read far too many academic book reviews of the "If I had been able to get a contract to write this book it would've come out like this" type.
The question about abstinence vs. contraceptive education came up, people had questions and were throwing around assertions, Megan has some #s to show.
I'm sure she'll blog about other things later. Some of those will interest you, some won't. Welcome to blog-reading!
If you think there are topics systematically unaddressed here, start your own. Not everyone can blog for the Atlantic, but blogging per se is pretty much free. Frequent commenting is how I got started, myself.
Megan,
To second your point and add to it - I'm not sure if this might be simply anecdotal evidence, though I doubt one would strain in finding a dearth of similar situations across the country: While I did not go to high school with particularly affluent kids, we certainly had comprehensive sex education, laden with information on contraception (not to mention the odd prop demonstration). There were more than a few girls who had not yet received their diplomas that made the conscious decision to have an accidental baby, out of the real or imagined benefits they might receive from the government in having a child.
In the words of Chez Quis's maitre-d', "I weep for the future."
72-year-old McCain makes the worst, most insulting choice for running mate ever in the history of America
I'm having trouble understanding this claim. Governor of a important state, with reputation (possibly undeserved; more to follow) for taking on corruption in her own party = worst choice in history? Worse than Edwards, one-term senator? Worse than Quayle, orthographic expert? Worse than Obama, less-than-one-term senator (oh, wait, not a VP pick, sorry).
I remember thinking, when that study came out, how dishonest (or perhaps statistically illiterate) was most of the media commentary. Because the study shows NO effect from abstinence-based education. It is no better and no worse than other forms of sex education. Most people don't seem to realize (or don't want to realize) that this result means that other forms of sex education can't be having a beneficial effect, because if they did, abstinence-based education would have negative effects in comparison.
I have to add that this accords with my own experience. My teenage friends and I were pretty feckless about birth control, drugs, etc., and what little judgment or restraint we exercised was due to a realization that our bright futures would be compromised by parenthood and/or arrest, not by the yammering of our teachers. Yet many people of my background appear to believe that the kids who aren't as bright or as academically motivated as we will somehow be more affected by being babbled at in the classroom than we were.
The teenagers in the abstinence only education were more likely to report that condoms never prevent STD's and less likely to report that they usually prevent the STD's. Secondly, what were differences in STD rates and teen pregnancy rates between the two groups? We could get hard data on this, instead of relying solely on surveys.
" .... Kids get pregnant because they have poor impulse control, hazy conceptions about the future, and possibly, parents who they are afraid will find birth control. ...."
Also, because they have 500 MILLION years of evolutionary selection pressure behind them saying "reproduce every chance you get" which is contradicted by less than 100 years of social pressure, saying "wait until you finish graduate school."
My mom became a mother while still a child. She got knocked up while her mom was away in the hospital giving birth to the family baby. When my mom asked her mother why she had to go to the hospital, she was told, "Well, the Indians brought the baby, but they broke my leg when they left it."
Not all that different then suggesting sex education doesn't matter. It does. I learned this from the pain tears on my Mom's face when she told me that story. I learned it from being the child of a child.
By the time you're fertile, you ought to know how to care for the equipment. It's a health issue, like brushing your teeth or eating a healthy diet. Should these things be taught in school? Well, ignorance of them extracts a heavy social cost. Accompanying good sex education with an education that helps kids see potential in their future would rock. How do you propose accomplishing that, I wonder?
Megan, in your earlier post you referred to "the latest studies". This is one study from 1999-2001. The U. of Washington study that shows an association of 50% lower teen pregnancy in those who had comprehensive sex ed is from March 2008, though I believe the data may be earlier. If I understand correctly there are other studies that also show a strong correlation which were cited in the study-of-studies piece referred to on the earlier thread.
I don't know why you refer to this as the "gold standard" of such studies, or who makes that claim. But to me, the fact that one study in 2001 designed primarily to examine the effects of abstinence-based sex ed found there was also no effect for comprehensive sex ed would lead one to say something like "there is reason to doubt whether comprehensive sex ed works", at most; and it looks like subsequent studies have demonstrated the link.
To use your earlier analogy, kids in poor inner-city schools may not learn algebra very well, but they will do better than kids who have never entered an algebra classroom, and the way to teach them algebra is definitely not to eliminate algebra classes.
1. in your opinion, is it wise to cut all funding for sex education in public schools? Do you believe that post-cut, all indicators will remain within the expected variance?
2. Couldn't costs be cut, similarly but less so, if funding for all abstinence-only programs were cut on the rationale that the abstinence option is generally mentioned (however briefly, it is not a difficult concept to describe) in all sex-ed programs?
Re:"McCain makes the worst, most insulting choice for running mate ever in the history of America"
That's a rather strange statement, and one posted with nothing to back it up.
Re: "My main criticism of "libertarians" is that they are only concerned with tax cuts. Not liberty, not fiscal sanity, not sound policy."
That isn't true, unless your defining some group by putting libertarians in quotes, rather than just typing it without the quotes. But that group would have to be some odd group that you define yourself, because actual libertarians care quite about about liberty. Also since taxes are an (unfortunately necessary) infringement on liberty, lower taxes reduces the infringement on liberty, thus even someone totally focused on supporting tax cuts would be supporting liberty even if the cuts are just one subset of the larger issue.
"It doesn't matter what you measure ... children are not getting useful information either from abstinence-only programs or those focused on birth control. "
Actually, what this demonstrates is that neither abstinence-only or birth-conrol education have any INFLUENCE on the sex practices of teens. Which tends to reinforce your later point: "I remember in my extremely affluent high school being shocked by how little my classmates appeared to have retained from literally years of birth control-focused eduction."
So the choice of sex education focus actually tells us only about the approach to teaching adopted by the school, and nothing else.
This study is the gold standard because Megan agrees with it.
That comparable studies which took place in overlapping periods, such as this one, by the Guttmacher Institute, which showed that increased knowledge leading to better usage of birth control played an overwhelming role in the decline in teenage births in the previous decade, is immaterial to Megan, because she doesn't agree.
We have to dismantle the public school system and replace it with a for-profit voucher system in order to fix any- and everything, and only studies that can be twisted to support that view count.
Re: Also, because they have 500 MILLION years of evolutionary selection pressure behind them saying "reproduce every chance you get" which is contradicted by less than 100 years of social pressure, saying "wait until you finish graduate school."
"Wait until the time is right" is a message with a long history. Even hunter-gatherers found ways to space their children well apart so they didn't over-procreate. In antiquity Plato and Aristotle both advised women to wait until they were at least 20 to start child-bearing (and men, they opined, should be older than that). The old system of chaperonage was designed to prevent early pregancnies too.
Rob, don't even go there. Obama's most important qualification for Democratic nominee is that he won the primary for Democratic nominee; we're talking about "picks", not winning candidates. Edwards had no scandals as VP, which indicates the vetting process was relatively thorough. Quayle, for that matter, had no scandals apart from misspelling "potato". Palin has immediately landed in a soup of hilarious small-town scandals and petty old rivalries, and there's an active investigation into whether she broke the law and abused executive power. There's the teen pregnancy thing, which, instead of announcing ahead of time to make it a non-issue, she allowed to be uncovered in the most titillating manner possible. She made clear misstatements of fact about her own record in her nomination speech. This all stems from poor preparation. She's a bad pick because she brings with her all of this absurd media chaos, and she and McCain together have failed in the basic primary task of a competent candidacy, to be in control of your message. You can't call a VP pick "good" when "nutty" and "wacky" are the adjectives that come to mind to describe it. There hasn't been a VP pick like this, oh, ever, except for the Eagleton thing possibly. If you want to make the case that this isn't an awful pick, it'd be on the grounds that the American people love to vote for freakshows, that the decision to turn the presidential election into "American Idol" is a brilliant strategical move. That's possible, but it's not a very reassuring argument to make about the future of the country.
The atmosphere I'm feeling here is "Tonya Harding".
You're using MercatorNet as your data source? From their mission statement:
"How do we define human persons? They are men and women (that's right, nothing in between) who have an intellect to know the truth and a free will. Their bodies express their spirit in a way that makes them unique in the universe. They are not machines, animals, or cost centres, but beings with a transcendent value. They need loving families to flourish. They only thrive in a society whose laws recognise their dignity."
Gee, might there be an ideological component to their analysis?
No, Brooksfoe, it's from 2007; there's a lag on all data collection and the analysis.
That study is the most comprehensive longitudinal study out there, and also one available on the web. Others in medical journals like the BMJ show the same result: when you do metaanalysis, there's just no significant effect. It doesn't matter what you tell them; either they use condoms or the pill, or they don't.
The reported differences in beliefs were, AFAICT, not statistically significant, and also, didn't seem to impact behavior.
Try to think of it this way: do you think drug education in schools has any effect? If you're a liberal, I bet you don't, and you're right. Ask yourself why this is, and why you think that sex ed is more likely than drug ed or driver's ed to reduce risk-taking behavior.
What they need is not more education about The Pill, but a better future to look forward to.
Miss Megan,
Now as in 1958, the country is stratified into a small patriciate (perhaps one in forty), a bourgoisie of salaried employees and proprietors constituting about 30% of the population, a working-class wage-earning element constituting north of 60%, and a lower class constituting the balance. Bar the proportion of this last stratum, the relative sizes changes only quite slowly. The income distribution may be more unbalanced, but the country as a whole is a good deal more affluent as regards tradeable goods and services. In these respects, the look of the 'future' is no worse than it ever was. Better, in fact.
Public and community life have deteriorated in quality a good deal in fifty years, but the breakdown in social architecture of which bastardy is a component is an endogenous factor in that deterioration.
Tim Fowler,
Lower taxes reduce the infringment on liberty only if they are accompanied by actual reductions in spending. If you cut taxes without cutting spending, you are simply deferring taxes to a later period.
Someone who is totally focused on tax cuts then is no friend of liberty.
That comparable studies which took place in overlapping periods, such as this one, by the Guttmacher Institute, which showed that increased knowledge leading to better usage of birth control played an overwhelming role in the decline in teenage births in the previous decade, is immaterial to Megan, because she doesn't agree.
You mean the research-and-education wing of an international conglomerate which trafficks in contraceptives produced a study showing that promoting their product is a salutary activity. I look forward to your future citations to the work of the Tobacco Institute.
What a misunderstanding! Without sex ed, the kids thought they we're studying essays in random variables listening to rap music while we, with our dirty minds, what have we been thinking?
' ... "Wait until the time is right" is a message with a long history. Even hunter-gatherers found ways to space their children well apart so they didn't over-procreate. ....'
True enough, but if you became a 'single mom' in the Paleolithic, there was a very high probability that you and your child(ren) would all die. The modern welfare state has removed most of the risks of promiscuity, but the individual retains the benefit. So it's hardly surprising that it occurs.
I'm certainly not suggesting that we should go back to stoning people, by the way. I'm just saying that we shouldn't be surprised by teenaged pregnancies.
Obama's most important qualification for Democratic nominee is that he won the primary for Democratic nominee
That's nice. But of course, when discussion "qualifications," one generally means "qualifications for the office sought" not "qualifications to seek the office." Obama won the primaries; I have no objection to him running in the general. But I'd like an explanation of why "community organizer" is better than "mayor" (even of a small town) and "4-year senator" is better than "governor" as a qualification for the presidency. Or, since we're talking "picks," why Palin is less qualified than Edwards as regards the vice presidency.
Palin (and McCain) may be incompetent media/message managers and poor campaigners. But of course, I'm not considering them for the job of PR flack (or the Clintonian position of permanent campaigner), I'm considering them for the job of POTUS and VP. And while I find much to dislike about McCain (and many unanswered questions about Palin), I don't see any reason to regard them as fundamentally less qualified than the opposite ticket.
Finally, the fact that there are many accusations of small-town scandals and rivalries is no more evidence of actual malfeasance that the fact that Kerry was accused of having a "bimbo problem" was evidence that he did, in fact, have a bimbo problem. It may just be evidence of, well, small-town rivalries and jealously. Time will tell on that one.
Whether or not she's a "good" pick by whatever standard you're using, I don't know (although I will say that your standard is excessively media-oriented, from my perspective). But plainly unqualified, or the "worst in history," I can't see.
I hate to state the obvious, but as usual, this seems to be a larger problem because less people have the choice not to attend schools subsidized by tax-payers with starkly contrasted belief systems. I don't mean to shift this to a discussion on vouchers, nor do I posit them as a panacea of social ills. It always seems to me that tax-funded cultural entities are bound to fail due to the simple fact that "communities" are only defined as such for the accord of their members - a more seldom occurrence than most would hope for.
Well said Megan.
It's also takes at least two people to have sex, so only one of them needs to be properly educated. It would be very difficult to tease out the effects of comprehensive sex-education, when their peers and potential partners are likely to have received comprehensive sex-education and pass that information on to their peers and partners that received abstinence only education. Especially when it seems likely a fairly small number of students.
do you think drug education in schools has any effect? If you're a liberal, I bet you don't, and you're right.
Actually, that's not true. I'm quite sure that school-based education about the proper way to take drugs would have a positive effect on the safety of people using drugs, much as similar outreach programs to heroin user populations have a positive impact on reducing HIV transmission, etc. But it'd also probably lead to increased numbers of kids using drugs, as opposed to sex ed, which doesn't. "Drug education in schools" as it exists is only comparable to "abstinence education" on sex, not to comprehensive sex ed.
What brooksfoe said re drug education. Drug education taught me that I could mess around with pot with much less dire consequences than smack and coke. My fair share of weed later, it sure looks like they were correct.
Really, what's the point of this post? To argue that it's better if kids remain ignorant? That denying basic information about their health and welfare is OK? That many teens choose to ignore what they learn is hardly a compelling reason to pretend that the earth is flat. Birth control education is just a small part of the comprehensive sex education that we owe our children (I have two teenagers and they have not been denied this basic & critical information).
"Kids... have poor impulse control, [and] hazy conceptions about the future."
My goodness that is the most accurate description of adolescents ever constructed in the English language.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the study Megan links to compares students in programs with an abstinence focus to regular family services and sex ed programs. It does not compare programs to no programs, i.e. sex ed. to no sex ed. Therefore, I don't see how you can draw the conclusion that sex ed doesn't matter from this study. The abstinence programs still included information about sexuality, the impact of pregnancy, and STDs. So a child who goes through the abstinence program may well still be better off than a child who goes through no program at all. this study doesn't examine the effects of no education, it examines the effects of different types of education. When I read it through, it appeared to me that that the Miami and Milwaukee programs and controls were both far more through than the Virginia and Mississippi programs. There was only one table I saw that disaggregated the four sites, and it suggested (though did not conclude) that the urban kids had higher rates of abstinence than the rural kids. That seems meaningful tome and worthy of additional study.
But I do not reach the conclusion that Megan appears to reach that sex education has no impact at all.
Megan,
Given the enormous body of literature on sex education programs and pregnancy outcomes (and others like STDs) it seems rather odd of you to classify one of them as the "definitive study" while ignoring the wealth of information contained in others. Seems intellectually somewhat suspect.
Numerous meta-analyses have been published on this subject and the conclusions seem to be that the effectiveness of sex education programs depends on the outcome being considered (e.g., better for STDs than pregnancy prevention) and that the effectiveness is moderated by a variety of personal and family factors. Stating that sex education does not reduce pregnancy is, however, simply not true and suggests a somewhat ideological approach to the matter, particularly when you base this opinion on a decision to ignore well over 100 other studies on the matter.
Sigh. Statistics. My bailiwick. 'Meta-analysis' sounds impressive, doesn't, it? But the truth of the matter is, the state of the art practically guarantees that 27 different meta-analyses will give 27 different answers. In an odd bit of synchronicity, this was recently addressed over at the science blogs site:
What's also odd is to suggest that such studies are on an equal footing. I'd be much more likely to go with a study by the APA rather than one by Heritage for example. And, big surprise, the, ah, more scientific institutions all say pretty much the same thing as this:
Note the quality of the studies that 'support' abstinence only education. And, as common sense suggests:
The bottom line is, don't use buzzwords like 'meta-analysis' when it's just code for 'studies I agree with.' It's not just dishonest, it's _pathetic_ dishonesty.
What brooksfoe said re drug education. Drug education taught me that I could mess around with pot with much less dire consequences than smack and coke. My fair share of weed later, it sure looks like they were correct.
ScentofViolets - not sure if you understand my point. I tend to agree with you regarding the low effectiveness of abstinence only programs. I am also not sure what your problem with well done meta-analyses is. As a PhD psychologist who uses the methodology extensively I agree that the inclusion of studies in meta-analysis can be subjective but it is also one of the best way to take into account a variety of study artifacts that individual studies cannot really account for (e.g., base rate variations, sampling error). Most of the published meta-analyses in this field clearly specify their inclusion criteria, as one would expect from honest academics - so I am not sure where you get the "pathetic dishonesty" charge from.
Finally I agree with your evaluation of the Heritage Foundation but there are numerous professional bodies and other publishers besides the APA that publish sound work.
"Really, what's the point of this post? To argue that it's better if kids remain ignorant?"
What's the point of your comment? To argue that it's better that we be ignorant of the effects of various educational approaches to sex ed?
I doubt very much that Megan is suggesting that we remove sex education from schools. All this post claims is that based on the best available evidence, comprehensive sex education (including contraception) does not have a significant effect on pregnancy rates. This seems reasonable to debate, because there are plenty of people who seem to suggest that if we just gave kids more information about contraception, we'd have dramatically fewer unwanted pregnancies.
When I was 17 I dated a 19 year old girl who had a kid. It was so clear that this was no accident, and she had all her teen-parent friends around to confirm this. What she and the other moms wanted was someone to love them... so they manufactured someone to do the job. Needless to say I got out before I 'accidentally' became daddy #2.
Did you read the post and also the origin cite? Let me quote a bit from the abstract:
And then:
Read the entire article. It's quite an eye-opener to people who aren't aware this (statisticians, needless to say, have been aware of these sorts of dangers for a long time. But no on listens to us :-)
Oh, and your objection is covered, btw. here's a paragraph in the following discussion after the protocols are discussed:
So, to answer your last question, the pathetic dishonesty is what I will call the fallacy of 'Argument from authoritative buzz words':
"You're relying on ancedotal data".
"Yeah? Well your 'statistical' study is done on a self-selected sample, and the sample size is n=7!"
"Guys, guys, I beat you both - my study is just not an analysis, it's a - ba Ba BA! - meta-analysis."
Please. Spare me the electrical animal humors, or the radium water therapy 'scientifically' designed to enhance male potency.
That's not to say that such analyses don't have their place, or are not useful, or are just so much hokum; just that there is no particular reason to believe that they answer any particular question with any more authority simply by virtue of being a 'meta-analysis'.
Going off on something of a tangent here, but while teen pregnancy in the Netherlands was much higher among immigrant populations until recently, it's now falling rapidly among immigrant populations as well. Second-generation teens of Moroccan, Turkish and Surinamese ancestry have pregnancy rates just as low as "autocthonous" Dutch teens.
http://www.knov.nl/home/_Service/nieuws/Overig_nieuws_2008/#2129
You can chalk this up to "culture", but something is clearly changing for the better there. In the US it's changing for the worse. Some researchers have minimized the effect of explicit sex education on Dutch teen pregnancy rates, focusing instead on relatively intact Dutch families and anti-teen-mother stigma; the falling rates among "new Dutch" suggest that may not be the main factor. As for anti-teen-mother stigma, if that's what we need in place of better sex ed, then the joyous and welcoming reception accorded to pregnant teens like Palin's daughter by conservative evangelicals is obviously part of the problem.
Boy that study sure doesn't prove your point Megan. Really, it makes you look rather bad.
I would post 10 or 12 things in the next hour so that you can get it off your page.
Re: the joyous and welcoming reception accorded to pregnant teens like Palin's daughter by conservative evangelicals is obviously part of the problem.
It is a bit odd, no, that people who normally tsk-tsk and shake their fingers at sexual immorality aren't doing that in this case. Yes, I understand that pro-Life folk approve of the girl not getting an abortion, but why is no one saying the obvious: That she and her boyfriend shouldn't have been having sex at all? If Chelsea Clinton had gotten pregnant at 17 we would never have heard the end of it, with the Religious Right screaming about what an awful example her homelife had set for her. Amd for crying out loud why isn't someone also pointing out that 17 is too young to get married and the baby really ought go to Catholic Social Services or some similar adoption group?
Scentofviolets - all that the article you link to demonstrates for certain is that some of the reviewers in this study are either shockingly ignorant of statistics or (more likely) are merely showing evidence for the anchoring effect in judgment and decision-making. I am referring in particular to the one reviewer who "disagreed" for the data for 10RCTs. Perhaps he was overly concerned with the rather moderate level of heterogeneity in the data.
Can we at least agree that selectively citing one study in support of one's argument is not ideal if there are many other well-done studies on the subject as well - some of which draw different conclusions?
Did you see this in the report:
Further, you seem to saying that by definition if opinion does not at least roughly converge then there must be something wrong with the experimental procedure. Since this study was done precisely to see if any divergence existed over and above disagreement appearing from differences in the power of distinct studies, I don't see how this is can be interpreted as anything but an article of faith on your part.
This is certainly true. But that was not my point (and in any case, I think that the evidence is that the good, well-done studies tend to rather strongly support one side; the balance is by no means 50:50 or even 80:20.)
My point, which is not especially insightful or profound. I'm merely observing that saying one study trumps another _just_ because one is a 'meta-analysis' (which was Megan's claim, if you recall) doesn't make a lot sense.
I don't particularly care for people to toss around phrases like 'scientifically proven' or 'statistically significant' as if they are some sort of magic touchstone of authenticity. Surely we can agree upon that, yes?
Are there any studies proving that economic education doesn't work?
Fine, let's assume the outcomes are identical for the two styles of sex ed. Which is better? The version that says be abstinent, or the version that offers information in case you decide not to be abstinent?
I don't see how the government holding back information in a flat earth, know-nothing, middle ages sort of way emphasizes liberty and minimizes the state, which is something I thought this blog was in favor of.
[...]My point, which is not especially insightful or profound. I'm merely observing that saying one study trumps another _just_ because one is a 'meta-analysis' (which was Megan's claim, if you recall) doesn't make a lot sense.[...]
Wow..as if abstinence education is all about hiding the BCP from the kiddies...what an amazingly inane oversimplification of the topic. Day One: Hey You! Don't have sex or else!
Day Two: You heard me!
Day Three: Don't even think about it!
Day Four: I mean it!
I can't wait for the meta-analysis of the unicorn petting zoo proposal that Obama is floating.
Thanks for the link to the study. As a parent, I am concerned about the "message" sent to our kids through educational programming: both sex educ and abstinence only send messages about what is acceptable, and I lean toward the later in terms of what schools should be doing.
However, as a parent, I also want to know what works and this practical strain can trump the values-based one.
Now, is there a side-by-side comparison (longitundinal study) of pregnancy rates, STDs, sexual assault/rape/date rape, etc. between cohorts - one from abstinence only and the other from conventional sex education??
I'd be very interested in this kind of meta-analysis.
Sandman asks me the question "What's the point of your comment? To argue that it's better that we be ignorant of the effects of various educational approaches to sex ed?" Clearly not. Preaching abstinence is different than teaching sex-ed. The former leaves out critical components and the later is inclusive. That the light may go on at 20 rather than at 17 does not offer a reasonable rationale to simply fail to teach all the information. Moreover, there are STD prevention benefits from condoms that are also missed in Ms Megan's truncated curriculum. That neither are proving to be terribly effective in delivering lower teen pregnancies in the US should not be an endorsement for keeping kids ignorant.
I understand that the Princpal of Bristol's school confirms that they teach 'standard' sex ed there, including contraception. So there goes the theory that her Mom's abstenince only ed was the problem.
you LIE!
mathmatica did not compare 4 abstinence programs to normal programs!
You get more of what you incentivize.
I am a college counselor, and hard working middle class parents don't get much or any help with skyrocketing college costs...they often ask me for help in figuring it out. I point out that the fastest way to become independent and get lots of benefits is to get pregnant. Some parents call it the spread eagle scholarship.
Full tuition, fees, books paid.
The government will pay for your apartment, your medical costs, your food, your energy bill, and give you a discounted phone bill; they'll also kick in on request a modest car, clothing, school supplies, and emergency assistance for various situations that might arise, if you go in crying.
Plus you get a big fat financial aid refund check.
All this, with no student loan debt, and no work!
So it's up to parents to decide if they like this scholarship program and are going to encourage their daughter to pursue it. She may never escape the welfare trap...it sucks people in and it's hard to get a good enough paying job to get out. And she'll have to move to a different state every five years to reset her lifetime limit on welfare bens.
I have a friend who's a nurse in an OBGYN practice. She told me about the scheme many of her teen/young women patients have worked out and pursue as a plan: find a guy with a job, a good paycheck, and no previous children. Whoever's first in line for child support gets a bigger check (enforced by family court). Rinse, repeat with a new guy. Never date a man who already has children or child support payments.
Do guys know this?
Men used to be slackadaisical about contraception motivation, but if they knew that hottie is looking at him like a big fat child support check meal ticket, I wonder if he'd be more careful about unzipping his pants, and wrapping the rascal if he does. One night = 18 years of paying big time every month.
The financial incentives are a perfect storm.
Besides the fact that...uncontracepted sex is far more fun, and uncontracepted women are more attractive to men (unconscious level--good pheromones). Strong arguments for "keeping it real."
I think sex ed (evangelizing the anti-natal attitude of the West) has been incredibly successful. 20% of women aged 40-44 have no children (and are obviously not likely to at that age)--double the rate of 30 years ago. That's my age cohort. We were taught how risky it was to have children--they make you economically vulnerable. We're the first children of the great divorce wave of the 1970s. All those abandoned daughters, and a fifth of us refuse to breed. Chicken, meet roost.
I know this is late but I'm most interested in the post Sept. 2 at 6:12 that claims that hunter-gatherers spaced their children well apart. Where is God's name is the proof for that statement? A high mortality rate would have necessitated an equally high birth rate.
The drive to procreate is one of the most powerful of all biological drives. The only reason hunger and thirst beats procreation is you have to be alive to reproduce. As to the time line for how long society has suggested delaying reproduction, 100 year or 2000 years are totally equivalent when compared to the time sexual reproduction has been a part of the biosphere. We are programmed to our very DNA to reproduce. That is ALL life is about, reproducing itself. Please quit being surprised when children, whose brains are wired completely differently than adults, don't make the same "wise" decisions.
Back to the obvious. That's what an Assistant Village Idiot is for.
None of the curricula have much effect. However, some effect is good, and inclusive noses out abstinence, at least as of my last research on the topic about two years ago. But let me repeat - none of it means much. Even supporters of one or the other will not tell you that putting in a sex-ed curriculum will reduce STD's or teen pregnancies by 50%.
Adults talk a lot about what should work. What makes sense to us. The inclusives will paint the false picture that the choice is between school-taught "barrier and birth control" sex-ed and children remaining ignorant. The abstinence-onlies paint the false picture that if we don't hold the line and appear to never give permission to have sex, that children will never hear about the advantages of abstinence.
Rubbish. Other cultural (and biological) factors drive almost the entirety of the problem, and school sex-ed is a mostly symbolic issue. We each use it to reassure ourselves that we are doing the right thing by our young people, contrasting ourselves to the worst extreme of the other side.
Hence the energy in thread comments.
I found an interesting problem with the methods used by the researchers in the study cited above.
The control group and treatment group were drawn from the same school. "randomly assigned within schools to either the program or the control group."
What this study is assuming is that students do not talk to one another. Studying education (especially sex education) is not like studying the affects of a medication. Information is easily disseminated, especially in a situation where a student's best friend, or even sexual partner could be in the other class.
By providing comprehensive sex education to HALF a class, you are in effect providing it to all of them.
Schools that provide only abstinence only education often keep students ignorant of contraception methods and information about STDs because the information is not made available to ANY student, and only students who do independant research or whose parents can acquire and possibly disseminate such information. (I know this because I attended such a school and information about STDs and contraception was nowhere to be found.)
More likely than not students shared what they were learning and compared notes about the different classes. I think it is difficult to say that the students being provided with Abstinence only education really were, when in fact they had access to the same information as the control group. (Via the control group.)
I think a study that used different methods may have very different results. It is possible that abstinence only students where both types of education are available engage in safer practices than they would if only abstinence education is available.
I feel like I should also add to my above comment. Abstinence only information being disseminated within a school may also cause students recieving comprehensive education to engage in sex at a slower rate than they would otherwise. (It is a cross contamination issue, not just one way.)
Yes, I understand that pro-Life folk approve of the girl not getting an abortion, but why is no one saying the obvious: That she and her boyfriend shouldn't have been having sex at all? If Chelsea Clinton had gotten pregnant at 17 we would never have heard the end of it, with the Religious Right screaming about what an awful example her homelife had set for her. Amd for crying out loud why isn't someone also pointing out that 17 is too young to get married and the baby really ought go to Catholic Social Services or some similar adoption group?
1) I am Chelsea Clinton's age and had acquaintances who went to Sidwell Friends with her. There was never a danger of her getting pregnant at age 17. She was too snobby and aloof, and turned many people off. And considering how fancy-pants Sidwell Friends is, that's really saying something.
2) Isn't there a joke about how in the winter in Canada and Alaska there's little to do besides drink and f***?
3) Seriously, who here wasn't f***ing at age 17? And was that a decision borne of principles or lack of a willing partner?
4) I don't get the vibe that GOP-ers are thrilled that Bristol is pregnant, just that she's not going to kill it. I went to school with politicians' kids. They are not better or worse than the general population, but their parents are usually all to eager to fix their problems quietly. The fact that Sarah Palin isn't doing that speaks well of her.
5) Girls with supportive families have no reason to put up their babies for adoption. I can't imagine that Bristol's baby would be any better off being adopted.
The problem with the "it doesn't work" statement is that nobody ever defines what they mean by "work." If the purpose is to decrease teen pregnancy, then no, of course it doesn't. Neither does handing them condoms, as the same study demonstrates.
However, the question itself is a straw man, a meaningless question that doesn't address the issue.
The issue is what are the schools doing pre-empting parental duties in the first place? Had my son been in school where they were teaching "sex ed" classes, I would have demanded that he not attend, not because I'm a prude, but because the school has no business taking over my duties as a parent (and actually, if the schools had been the cesspools then they are now, I would have homeschooled him, or sent him to a Catholic school).
But undeniably, unless you're the Virgin Mary, if you don't screw, you won't get pregnant. So yes, abstinence works, unless you think you can get knocked up by blowing your nose. The "they're going to screw anyway" argument is a weak, amoral, unprincipled one.
Nobody ever explains to me why they have unprotected sex if they don't want babies.
I looked at the Guttmacher website which says that half of all pregnancies in the USA are unplanned. They also say that approximately half of the women having abortions did not use any contraceptives. The other half did use contraceptives but experienced user or method failure.
The lower your socio-economic class is, the more likely you are to have unprotected sex even when you don't want to have a baby.
However, the Guttmacher people only speculated on why people who don't want babies have sex with no contraceptives. I think people should be asked why, especially when it is so easy to buy condoms from a drug store (or even a convenience store) or get prescription contraceptives from Planned Parenthood for free.
eltoro - You are quite correct that spending is the main point of concern.
But you don't need to actually reduce spending in order to be able to have tax cuts now, without tax increases in the future. You only need keep spending from increasing as fast over time as the economy grows.
Also even if the government fails to do that (and it often does), the tax cut can spur economic growth that will at least reduce the need for future tax increases.
But none of that changes the point that the real issue is spending.
and in addition to my last comment I would add that tax cuts don't imply "not controlling spending". I was supporting tax cuts in isolation, not what might be considered the unofficial Bush policy of cutting taxes, and rapidly increasing spending.
To the extent the increase in spending creates extra pressure for tax increases, than arguing for tax cuts IS arguing against these increases.
Another point is that simply lower rates isn't the only aspect I'm concerned about with taxes. Simpler taxes would be much preferable to the system we have now.
Mark - How many 20 year olds, don't know how to use contraception AND would know how to use it right and would actually use it right if they had taken sex ed classes when they where teens?
I don't think its a very large number, and the empirical evidence indirectly supports me on that because studies show that sex education classes, whether abstinence only, contraception use only, or both (or some other form of education), have little effect on the pregnancy rate.
Yes the studies focus on the teen pregnancy rate, and its possible that for those who take classes on contraception the "light could go on at 20" in many cases, but does that really strike you as likely?
It seems to me the prospect of what Levi Johnston is facing right now should be more effective than any kind of sex education program you could think up.
Poor kid. It's bad enough having to deal with the prospect of marriage and raising a child at such a young age but to have to do it while a pair of political parties use you to bludgeon one another is punishment far in excess of the crime. The daughter too although at least in her case she's used to matters private becoming matters political.
I'm all for excessive mudslinging (politicians gunning for the White House deserve as much abuse as we can muster) but at least direct it at those who deserve it.
Stop the bickering over sex-is-fun "education" versus abstinence-is-wise advice. Simply impose some meaningful consequences for stupid behavior. In this case, father-only custody would seem to promise a speedy halt to the spread of the pathologies discussed by Megan and most of her on-topic commenters. The first no-longer-pregnant girl who goes crying to her schoolmates "They took my bay-bee!" will dry up all interest in her schoolmates' interest in being sperm-soliciters looking for some baby batter to bake up into a helpless love-object for them to dominate and manipulate.
Problem solved. You're welcome. There'll be no charge.
rightwingprof: Do you feel the same way about abstinence only education? It seems like it's the same principle, just different folks doing the intervention into parental matters.
To my mind, there are kind of three broad arguments for sex ed of some form:
a. Harm reduction--15 year olds having sex is bad, but 16 year old mothers or 16 year olds with HIV are much worse. There's an empirical question here, about whether these programs really cause a decrease of harm.
b. The user's manual sort of teaching that's an extension of health and PE classes.
c. Moral instruction--this is where the irreconcilable differences lurk, because we don't all agree on the morality of sex. Is extramarital sex wrong? Is single motherhood wrong? How about homosexuality?
The studies can in principle resolve (a), though I'm not sure which way that goes. (I gather the effect is probably small if it exists.) It's probably not impossible to come up with curriculum which is broadly acceptable for (b), though with moral objections from some people. But there is no way to come to an agreement on (c). We probably just have to accept that, and do our best not to let the disagreement on moral issues leak over into the empirical question of harm reduction.
The recent trend of fools claiming “abstinence-only” education is somehow to blame for teen pregnancies is an unfortunate off-shoot of this dialogue. The people making this claim offer no proof and no tangible connection between the two concepts. Last I checked, journalism was supposed to be about facts, and one side has provided zero to back up its claims. To me, zero facts = zero credibility, yet these people go right on chanting.
The other laughable part of their claim comes when they make some ad hominem claim like: “I have sex, and I’m monogamous,” as if somehow the accomplishment of connecting a reproductive organ with someone else on a consistent basis makes the person an expert on what national education policy should be.
Also, a monogamous sexual relationship — even if it were somehow relevant to the shaping of national policy — would be mostly irrelevant to the target audience, which is students in their early teens. Yet this piece of logic manages to slip past the anti-responsibility crowd.
Finally, these people claim to be “street smart,” yet they are selectively ignorant of the existence of anyone who has dealt with an unintended pregnancy. They also cling to percentages that should raise their awareness of the risk of a life-changing event, but somehow they rationalize these into a belief they’re at no risk at all.
Anyway, we haven’t addressed the myriad people with these beliefs who simply are not ready for a sexual relationship, but we’ll save that one for another session. Remember, responsibility is the only factual, rational decision here.