Surprise, Surprise, Abstinence Programs Telling Lies

"Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals 'can result in pregnancy,' a congressional staff analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the 'false, misleading, or distorted information' in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.
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Among the misconceptions cited by Waxman's investigators:

• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."

• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.

• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.

One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion, the Waxman report said.
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Nonpartisan researchers have been unable to document measurable benefits of the abstinence-only model. Columbia University researchers found that although teenagers who take "virginity pledges" may wait longer to initiate sexual activity, 88 percent eventually have premarital sex."

Oh my god! I didn't see this coming at all! I thought abstinence was truly based on a desire to see children make it through their troubled teenage years and all the way to marriage without engaging in sexual intercourse. You mean it's a whole system based on lies, fear, and more lies? Jeez, that's way out of left field for a program run primarily by friends of the religious right. Way to go George W. Bush, for supporting yet another campaign of distrust and disinformation. How many times do we have to discuss this: abstinence education doesn't promote abstinence, it promotes fear!  ¶
- david | 12:51 PM