Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

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Abstinence Heroes
President Bush has pushed to fund abstinence-only sex education, saying that it is the only
"surefire" way to prevent unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and immoral,
nasty, hot teen sex.
Abstinence, of course, does prevent all of these terrible things. Abstinence education,
however, does not.
On a November 1999 Meet the Press, candidate Bush told Tim Russert, "The folks
that are saying condom distribution is the best way to reduce teenage pregnancies obviously
haven't looked at the statistics."
Interesting. Maybe he's referring to the statistics finding a huge decline in teenage
pregnancy between 1990 and 1996. A study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute attributed 75
percent of that de cline to increased use of contraception-the most frequently used being condoms.
It's one of many studies that the American Medical Association, the National Institutes
of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National
Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine think about when they endorse comprehensive
sex education. Comprehensive programs encourage abstinence, but also say that if
you do have sex, you should use contraception.
Bush says that this "sends a contradictory message." He thinks that kids can't understand
the message that abstinence is a good idea, but that if you do have sex, you should use
birth control. I have two kids. I have to tell you, they find Bush's position more than a little
patronizing. And honestly, I don't think there was ever a time when they were simultaneously
too young to understand this concept, yet also physically old enough to have sex.
Brian Wilcox of the University of Nebraska looked at the statistics and found "mounting
evidence" (that's right, he said "mounting evidence") that abstinence-only programs do
not reduce pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases. In fact, they may do more harm than
good.
A Northern Kentucky University study showed that 61 percent of college undergraduates
who had taken virginity pledges broke them-and were less likely to use condoms when
they had sex for the first time than were those students who had never taken the pledge in the