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Abstinence-Plus Education
I'll post this without comment. Read the whole article if you are interested.
Abstinence until marriage has emerged as a primary policy goal in efforts to promote adolescent sexual and reproductive health—in the United States and increasingly world-wide. While few would argue with abstinence as a personal choice (no one should be forced to have sex), there are serious questions about whether government promotion of abstinence should be a public health goal. Marriage is not free of HIV risk. Early marriage—particularly of young women to older, sexually experienced men—carries a substantial risk of HIV infection. Around the globe, a young woman's primary risk of HIV infection is often through sex with her husband [1].
Sexual intercourse is almost universally initiated during adolescence worldwide. By age 20, 77% of young people in the US have initiated sex, and 76% have had premarital sex [2]. By age 25, over 90% people have had sex, with only about 3% waiting for marriage. Over the past 40 years, the median age at first intercourse has dropped (and stabilized) to age 17 in most developed countries [3]. Even more dramatic, however, has been the increasing age at marriage. In the United States, between 1970 and 2002 the median age at first sex for young women fell from 19 to 17 years, while the median age at marriage rose from 20 to 25 [4]. These enormous demographic changes stand in sharp contrast to the modest impact of health education in promoting abstinence or the small decline during the 1990s in sexual activity.
Dworkin SL, Santelli J (2007) Do Abstinence-Plus Interventions Reduce Sexual Risk Behavior among Youth? PLoS Med 4(9): e276
9 comments:
Thanks, Jared, for posting that article. This is the first time I've heard about abstinence plus education, and I think that is a good approach. The Church position is abstinence only, and I think that is the appropriate approach in Church classes. However, public schools have students from many backgrounds, and I like the abstinence plus education approach for that environment.
Allen,
I'm not sure I understood you correctly. Are you saying that the Church has a position on what should be taught in schools, or how individuals should act. I've never heard of a Church position opposing teaching about birth control, for example.
Jared,
I'm not sure I understand myself correctly, either :)
First, a disclaimer. I'm not familiar with current Church manuals, so I'm speaking in a general way.
The Church teaches that we should have no pre-marital sex, so I assume YM/YW, Seminary, Institute classes, etc. must teach abstinence only. This was the context of my first post. In making that post, I wasn't thinking about the situation, such as birth control, with married couples.
However, public schools have a mixture of students from various ethnic, religious, social, and economic backgrounds. I think that abstinence plus education may be a better approach in public schools than abstinence only. I'm sure that many LDS will disagree with me, and that is fine.
To me, the key principle is teaching people to make wise decisions about their conduct. This involves teaching about abstinence, birth control, disease, etc. so the students can decide what is best for them. The LDS who want abstinence only taught in public schools seem to think the important thing is that youth refrain from pre-material sex. The problem I see with that is that youth may blindly follow the abstinence only path for a while but will eventually discover that they can stray from that path without significant harm occurring. Later on, they may discover that significant harm did occur, but by then it is too late.
Hmmmm... while thinking about this while writing, I'm beginning to change my viewpoint a little bit. Even in church classes for our youth, I think a form of abstinence plus education is a better way to go. Teaching abstinence only may become a form of teaching blind obedience to a principle, and that is dangerous, especially in our times when our youth question everything. Teaching the "why" behind remaining virtuous before marriage and after death or divorce of a spouse, and no extramarital sex during marriage will, I think, help LDS make wise decisions that are in harmony with the Lord's commandments.
Allen,
OK, I think I see what you mean and that we basically agree.
The Church teaches the law of chastity. But public health policies--including sex-ed in schools or in developing countries where HIV is prevalent--are a different issue, for reasons discussed in the article. I am not aware of any Church position on the public health policy, like whether government-funded groups should encourage condom use in African countries.
People working on this issue in Africa have begun to see from their own statistics that the "safe sex" approach of explicit education and free condom distribution isn’t working. ("The Church Responds to HIV/AIDS: A World AIDS Day Interview With Elder Robert C. Oaks")
Thanks, Gary, for posting that article. It's good to know that the Church is making progress with such a difficult problem.
Our discussion began with the topic "Abstinence-Plus Education". I've been concerned that public schools are giving the wrong type of sex education to our youth. I read a couple of days ago a news report about a school district that is giving birth control pills to middle and high school students. I've known for quite a while that condoms were being given to that age group, but this was the first time I'd heard of pills being given. The school official for that district said that students would have sex regardless what the school did, so their focus was on helping the kids avoid pregnancy. That school district is giving education with the pills, but I think it is the wrong message.
The report Gary posted indicates the Church is having success with the nondenominational version of the program with non-LDS youth, well, at least with the leaders of non-LDS youth. I think that is really interesting and encouraging. If anyone learns that the nondenominational version of that program is available online, please post the link so we can have access to it.
Elder Oaks said the law of chastity was the foundation of that program, and he is 100% right about that approach to Church members. I believe that Church members who live the law of chastity do so because of their love of God. People without a love of God won't, in my opinion, have the conviction or the strength to live the law of chastity. They may try for a while, but then, As Elder Oaks indicated, they give up. So, we have to teach the law of chastity as a spiritual principle.
However, connecting chastity with religion presents a problem in public schools. Many educators won't touch any program that, in their mind, comes from religion. This makes it awfully hard for the schools to do anything but try to prevent pregnancy. Because of this, I'm anxious to get the details of the nondenominational version of the program being used in Africa. It would be great if a version of that program could be developed for parents to take to their local school board.
Even Planned Parenthood supports talking about abstinence and fidelity. The sticking point comes with how much emphasis to give them vs other prevention methods. Some apparently don't even want to discuss other methods, or worse, undermine confidence in other methods.
One LDS father attended a special parents' meeting at his 13-year-old son's school to preview the school's new course in human sexuality (which was no doubt Planned Parenthood approved) and found the idea of abstinence mentioned only briefly, in passing. "What about Abstinence?" is his account of what happened during that meeting. It has been printed by the Church twice, once in the Nov. 1999 Liahona and once in the Sept. 1996 Ensign. This story is a reminder of the powerful lessons the Spirit can teach. What a wonderful example!
Thanks, Gary, for posting the link to that story. What a great lesson on abstinence!
About 22-23 years ago, my 3rd child, Sara, was in high school in Massachusetts. The school was preparing to have a class in sex education, and my daughter, my wife, and I were concerned about the class.
The school held a parents meeting, and my wife and I attended. Our Bishop, who had a daughter in the school, also attended. One of us suggested that abstinence be part of the class, but our suggestion was rejected with the following comment: "Oh, we can't teach that; that is religion." Our Bishop responded with the following remark. "Abstinence is not religion. I'm a farmer, and if I put a bull in a pen with cows, I know what will happen. I have to keep them separate." The school officials ignored his remark. Abstinence was not added to the program.
One thing I need to give the school officials credit for is that they allowed my daughter to opt out of the sex education class. We were grateful for that!
In raising our four children, my wife and I put a lot of importance on teaching our children to be responsible for their lives. My daughters would walk out of the class if movies or other material not appropriate for a LDS young woman were introduced.
My children were never affected by peer pressure, because (a) they choose good friends, almost all of whom were non-LDS, and (b) they set their own standards and weren't interested in peers who suggested things they felt inappropriate. My youngest daughter was on a school bus one day going to a Math League contest. She was the only LDS on the bus. Some boys were using pretty rough language, and a girl spoke up and said, "You boys shouldn't say those things here. Tova is a Mormon." On another occasion, some girls came up to Tova with a $50 bill and said, "Tova, we'll give you this $50 bill if you will say just one bad word." Tova refused the money. One day, a non-LDS girl a few years younger than Tova came to her and said, "Tova, when I get older I want to be just like you."
If our youth are to survive in this wicked world, they must, I believe, become responsible for their own lives, and they must set their own standards, how they, not their parents, not the Church, want to live their lives. Hopefully, their standards will be the same as the standards taught by the church, but they must "own" the standards and not just blindly follow the Church.
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