"Teenagers who pledged to avoid sex until marriage were as likely to have intercourse as other U.S. adolescents," reports a new survey. Which would be fine. I don't much care if your first sexual encounter invalidates a pledge you took in 7th grade homeroom. The problem is, "teens who took the pledge also were less likely to use birth control pills or condoms than those making no promise." As Steve Benen comments, "The difference between teens who make abstinence pledges and teens who don't isn't sexual conduct, it's that those who make the pledges engage in more dangerous sexual conduct." Right. So the data we have says that abstinence pledges are definitely ineffective and possibly harmful. I'd treat that last as a provisional result: It's not clear that the pledge is leading to more risky sex. It could be that the folks who take the pledge have less access to birth control, or less knowledge about it, or simply love the idea of teen pregnancy. More study needed, etc. And the bottom line remains: Efforts to fund abstinence only education in place of sex education are efforts to fund an increase in teen pregnancy and STD transmission. At this point, the data is too clear, and too overwhelming, to support any other conclusion.
