This Week:

Quote of the Week

Sex Education: Fantasy Versus Reality OR, The Absolutists Versus the Rest of Us

Sex Ed: What Doesn't Work, and What Does

Lying To Kids Does Not Work
Educate Yourself About Sex Education

Greetings,

Last week was a double issue. This week is a double issue. What can I say? For all you new readers, I hope you're not overwhelmed. A typical Nygaard Notes is about 2,000 words, but I lose control on occasion, as I did last week and this.

This week I concentrate on the first part of a three-part look at the treatment of sex, drugs, and crime in the United States of America. I think the subjects are interesting in and of themselves, but I also think that there are some lessons to be learned from the patterns that we will see when we look at them together.

By way of sneak preview, I will say that I think there are different ways of dealing with human behavior problems that correspond to different political ideologies. The so-called "right wing," which I call the Individualist and Competitive (IC), group tends to think of behavior problems as stemming from individual moral failings. The so-called "left wing," which I call the Social and Cooperative (SC), group tends to think that the problems are more complex than that, stemming in part from the social, economic, and cultural contexts in which the people doing the behaviors were raised and are now living.

The IC ideology is dominant right now in this country, and I think the series I'm starting this week will show some of the real-world consequences of aligning our nation with this ideology. This may sound a little mysterious right now, but that's all right. By the end of this series (two or three weeks, I'm not sure yet), I think you'll understand more clearly the nature of the Forces of Bush, and how you can relate to them in a way that makes sense in terms of a different set of values. We'll see.

So, this week I'm talking about sex. Next week I hope to talk about drugs. After that, crime. It should be fun, so stay tuned.

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

"Most adults agree on what is not healthy for teenagers. Health professionals, educators, policymakers, and parents share a deep concern about unintended adolescent pregnancy, sexual abuse, and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. The question for policymakers is what approach will be most successful in helping young people avoid these negative outcomes and grow to become sexually healthy adults."

That's from a 2001 report called "Toward a Sexually Healthy America: Roadblocks Imposed by the Federal Government's Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education Program" put out by Advocates for Youth and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.

Sex Education: Fantasy Versus Reality
OR, The Absolutists Versus the Rest of Us

"No American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition. I believe, therefore, that we should establish as a national goal the provision of family planning services... to all who want but cannot afford them."

Those words were spoken in 1970 by the radical, left-wing Richard M. Nixon, upon his signing of Title X of the Public Health Service Act. Title X has been called "America's family planning program," and was the first comprehensive federal program devoted entirely to the provision of family planning services on a national basis.

In 1981, U.S. Senators Jeremiah Denton (R-AL) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who apparently didn't like the Title X program, called for a new approach to teen pregnancy-one emphasizing "morality" and "family involvement." Thus was born AFLA - the Adolescent Family Life Act. AFLA's stated purpose was "to find effective means, within the context of the family, of reaching adolescents before they become sexually active…[and] to promote self-discipline and other prudent approaches to the problem of adolescent premarital sexual relations." It soon came to be known as "the chastity bill."

By 1996 the word "chastity" was out and "abstinence" was in, as the 1996 welfare "reform" act signed by President Clinton promoted the "chastity" idea by expanding the federal government's role in funding so-called "abstinence-only" sex education. As the Congress prepares to reauthorize the welfare act (they have until March 30, 2005, to either enact welfare reform or pass another temporary extension of current welfare law), the Bush administration has framed the issue in stark terms, saying, "The sexual revolution that began in the 1960s has left two major problems in its wake. The first is ... non-marital births [and] ...The second is the explosion of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that now pose a growing hazard to the Nation's public health... To address these problems, the goal of Federal policy should be to emphasize abstinence..."

The way the federal government "emphasizes" so-called "abstinence" is through the funding sex education programs. There are three main programs that fund sex ed at the federal levels: 1) AFLA is still around, and Bush has proposed $26 million to fund it in the coming budget; 2) Title V of the Social Security Act, which includes an "Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage" initiative, is currently receiving $50 million per year; and 3) the "Special Projects of Regional and National Significance" program, the most restrictive of all the programs, for which Bush has requested a whopping $186 million for fiscal year 2005. Since 1996, federal funding for "Abstinence-Only" sex education has totaled nearly $1 billion.

What Is All this Money Paying For?

In order to receive federal sex ed dollars, school districts must adhere to programs that meet very specific criteria spelled out in federal law. The law spells out clearly, among other things, that "abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage" will be the "expected standard for all school-age children." Yes, that's right: All of 'em.

Meanwhile, in the world in which most of us actually live, the majority of people have their first experiences with sex during their teen years, or earlier. Judith Levine, in her excellent book "Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex," says it plainly: "Around the globe most people begin to engage in sexual intercourse or its equivalent homosexual intimacies during their teen years." The Alan Guttmacher Institute points out that 6 in 10 teenage women and nearly 7 in 10 teenage men have had sexual intercourse by their 18th birthday. In a study of randomly chosen undergraduate women at Bryn Mawr College, professor Sharon Lamb found that 85 percent of the subjects remembered a "normal childhood sexual-play experience," including "exploring the titillation of physical contact, notably of the genitals."

In other words, whether we like it or not the reality seems to be that children are sexual beings who can and do act on their sexual feelings. In dealing with this reality, people tend to fall into one of two groups, based on two very different sets of beliefs. One group believes that sexuality is a natural, normal, healthy part of life, and that children need accurate information about all aspects of sexuality in order to make decisions in line with their individual values and the values of their family and community. I'm in that group, and surveys indicate that most United Statesians - perhaps 75 percent - are also in this group.

The other group believes that sexual expression outside of marriage will have harmful social, psychological, and physical consequences, that abstinence from sexual intercourse before marriage is the only acceptable behavior, and that only one set of values (usually based on a particular interpretation of the Christian Bible) is morally correct for all students. Perhaps 15 percent of USers fall into this group.

The first group tends to support what is called "comprehensive" sex education, including information not only on abstinence from sex, but also on the tools and techniques that people (including children) will need to have in order to remain safe when they do become sexually active.

Abstinence-only sex education, on the other hand, wants sex education to follow the rules as they are currently spelled out in the law. Speaking of the law, here it is (specifically, Section 510(b) of Title V of the Social Security Act, P.L. 104-193):

The Legal Definition of "Abstinence-Only" Sex Ed

To qualify as "abstinence education" under federal law, an "educational or motivational program" must be one which:

(A) has as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
(B) teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children;
(C) teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;
(D) teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity;
(E) teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;
(F) teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society;
(G) teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increase vulnerability to sexual advances, and;
(H) teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.

[Ed note: I took the liberty of adding italics where I thought emphasis was needed.]

It is worth noting that the term "sexual activity" is nowhere defined specifically.

In summary, one approach is that which is supported by what I refer to as the "absolutists." They appear to attribute all behavior to an adherence to - or a failure to adhere to - the single set of moral values that they claim to "know" and stand for. These people wrote the rules for talking to kids about sex that you just read.

The other approach sees human behavior as a much more complex phenomenon, stemming in part from one's moral strength and commitments, but also influenced by other factors, such as family, the community, and other aspects of the world outside of oneself. These people, were they in power, would write a different set of rules for talking to kids about sex, or anything else.

In summary, most people in the country support a comprehensive approach to sex education that helps young people make good decisions, yet our political leadership is pushing for an ever-greater share of public funding to go toward the restrictive "Abstinence-Only" approach. Well, you could say, maybe the overwhelming majority of people are wrong, and the "Abstinence-Only" approach is more effective in protecting our kids. That would be incorrect, as the following article will illustrate.

Sex Ed: What Doesn't Work, and What Does

There are all sorts of motivations for having sex education in the schools. Perhaps the best one is protecting our kids from harm. A large percentage of United Statesians would like to see a reduction of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), a lower incidence of HIV/AIDS, and a reduction in the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions among the country's young people.

At least partly motivated by such public-health concerns, a large number of schools have implemented so-called "Abstinence-Only" programs - programs that follow the federal rules. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, some 35% of school districts with a sex education policy "require that abstinence be taught as the only option for unmarried people, and either do not allow discussion of contraceptives or allow discussion only of their failure rates." And, given the increasing levels of federal funding for such "Abstinence-Only" sex education, that percentage is likely to grow.

Are such programs effective in protecting our kids? It doesn't look like it. Although it is hard to judge conclusively, since teen sexuality is a difficult thing to study (ask any parent!), we do have quite a number of studies to go by, and the results are just about unanimous: "Abstinence-Only" sex ed does not work.

Here are some comments from various researchers, advocates, and scholars about the effectiveness of "Abstinence-Only" sex education:

* A scholarly study called "The Effectiveness of School-based Sex Education Programs in the Promotion of Abstinent Behavior: a Meta-Analysis" was published in 2002 (a "meta-analysis" combines the results of many already-completed studies, that is, it looks at the results of more than one study to give an overall view.) The study said this: "This review presents the findings from controlled school-based sex education interventions published in the last 15 years in the U.S. The effects of the interventions in promoting abstinent behavior reported in 12 controlled studies were included in the meta-analysis. The results of the analysis indicated a very small overall effect of the interventions in abstinent behavior."

* The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said, in August 2001, that: "Abstinence-only programs have not demonstrated successful outcomes with regard to delayed initiation of sexual activity or use of safer sex practices."

* The following year, the AAP testified before a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, saying "Multiple studies [of abstinence-only] programs on sexual activity and contraceptive use have been performed during the past few years. These studies have failed to show a delay in the initiation of intercourse, a decrease in frequency of intercourse, or a decrease in the number of sexual partners for abstinence-only programs, when used alone."

* An article in the Journal of Public Health Policy in 2003 called "Abstinence-Only Education: How We Got Here and Where We're Going," reported that "By 2002, the [U.S. Centers for Disease Control] had identified five "Programs That Work," curricula that have evidence to show their effectiveness in reducing sexual risk behaviors. No "abstinence-only" approach was found on this list of effective programs."

* Scholar Douglas Kirby authored a 2001 study called "Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy." In it, he looked at the three studies he could find that he considered "credible," and said "the evidence is not conclusive about abstinence-only programs. None of the three evaluated programs showed an overall positive effect on sexual behavior, nor did they affect contraceptive use among sexually active participants."

There are sex education programs that have proven effective in preventing unintended pregnancies and sexually-transmitted infections. The federal Centers for Disease Control used to have a project - called the "Programs That Work" initiative - that was designed to help educators identify curricula proven to reduce teen sexual risk behaviors, but that program is gone. The Union of Concerned Scientists reported last year that "At the behest of higher-ups in the Bush administration, according to a source inside the CDC, the agency was forced to discontinue" the "Programs that Work" initiative." Perhaps that was because the CDC program made it clear that "Abstinence-Only" sex ed is not a "Program That Works."

Fortunately, the group Advocates for Youth picked up the ball and published in 2003 a major study called "SCIENCE AND SUCCESS: Sex Education and Other Programs That Work to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, HIV & Sexually Transmitted Infections." That study has a long list of programs that make sense. Again, none of them are of the "Abstinence-Only" variety.

In brief, the programs that work are comprehensive, and "include information about abstinence and contraception within the context of sex education." You can see the report for yourself online at http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/programsthatwork/ After you read it, maybe you'll want to call your school board. You can bet that the minority of "Abstinence-Only" supporters have already called.

Lying To Kids Does Not Work

Perhaps a part of the reason that "Abstinence-Only" programs do not work is that they often lie to the kids they are supposedly educating. And, if memory serves me right, teenagers are real experts at spotting when adults are lying to them. Why do I say that these programs lie? Well...

A major study released last month by the minority staff of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform pointed out some serious problems with the "Abstinence-Only" programs that are currently in use. Called "The Content of Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Education Programs," the report found that "over 80% of the abstinence-only curricula," used by over two-thirds of grantees of the largest federal abstinence initiative in 2003, "contain false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health." Here are a few examples cited in the report, and the words are verbatim from the Executive Summary of the report:

* Abstinence-Only Curricula Contain False Information about the Effectiveness of Contraceptives. One curriculum says that "the popular claim that 'condoms help prevent the spread of STDs,' is not supported by the data"; another states that "[i]n heterosexual sex, condoms fail to prevent HIV approximately 31% of the time"; and another teaches that a pregnancy occurs one out of every seven times that couples use condoms. These erroneous statements are presented as proven scientific facts.

* Abstinence-Only Curricula Contain False Information about the Risks of Abortion.
One curriculum states that 5% to 10% of women who have legal abortions will become sterile; that "[p]remature birth, a major cause of mental retardation, is increased following the abortion of a first pregnancy"; and that "[t]ubal and cervical pregnancies are increased following abortions." In fact, these risks do not rise after the procedure used in most abortions in the United States.

* Abstinence-Only Curricula Blur Religion and Science.
Many of the curricula present as scientific fact the religious view that life begins at conception. For example, one lesson states: "Conception, also known as fertilization, occurs when one sperm unites with one egg in the upper third of the fallopian tube. This is when life begins." Another curriculum calls a 43-day-old fetus a "thinking person."

* Abstinence-Only Curricula Treat Stereotypes about Girls and Boys as Scientific Fact.
One curriculum teaches that women need "financial support," while men need "admiration." Another instructs: "Women gauge their happiness and judge their success on their relationships. Men's happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments."

* Abstinence-Only Curricula Contain Scientific Errors.
In numerous instances, the abstinence-only curricula teach erroneous scientific information. One curriculum incorrectly lists exposure to sweat and tears as risk factors for HIV transmission. Another curriculum states that "twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create this new individual"; the correct number is 23."

Educate Yourself About Sex Education

Book: "Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex" by Judith Levine. University of Minnesota Press, 2002

The Alan Guttmacher Institute has a "Facts In Brief" report called simply "Sexuality Education." It's on the web at http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/fb_sex_ed02.html

The group Advocates for Youth has three excellent sites I would like to recommend. The first is called "Science and Success: Sex Education and Other Programs That Work to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, HIV & Sexually Transmitted Infections." It's found on the web at http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/news/press/051503.htm

Advocates for Youth also analyzes the programs that do NOT work (that is, "Abstinence-Only" programs) That report is at http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/abstinenceonly.htm

And, finally, AFY puts the two sides together, in their report "Sex Education Programs: Definitions & Point-by-Point Comparison." That one is found on the web at http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/rrr/definitions.htm

Scholar Dana McGrath addressed the Institute for Women's Policy Research in June 2003, in which he, in his words, "briefly traced the historical and political context in which teens' sexuality and pregnancies have been conceptualized and defined as policy "problems;" critically examined the recent policy process surrounding federal abstinence-only funding, using the framework of "morality politics," and; analyzed the ways in which the approaches to sex education in both abstinence-only and more comprehensive formats that have resulted from this set of historical, cultural, and moral-political dynamics have failed students." This 9-page report is a great overview. Find it on the web at http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/McGrath_Dana.pdf

The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States has published a simple, 2-page summary of federal funding for "Abstinence-Only" programs. Find it at http://www.siecus.org/policy/states/BriefExplanationofFederalAb-OnlyFunding.pdf

Finally, you could visit the websites or otherwise contact some groups that support comprehensive sex education, like:

The American Academy of Pediatrics; the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; the American Medical Association; the American Public Health Association; AIDS Action; the National Academy of Sciences; the Institute of Medicine; the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, and; the National Institutes of Health.

Or, groups that support "Abstinence-Only" sex ed:

The American Life League; Concerned Women for America; the Eagle Forum; the Family Research Council; Focus on the Family, and; the Heritage Foundation.