Graph for the Day for November 10, 2010

By Janice Shaw Crouse

Abstinence programs have no effect ... really?

"In 1996, Congress authorized $50 million annually for five years to states for abstinence education programs ... authorized under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. ... [Two key findings of the mandated evaluation were]:

Youth in the program group [which was offered abstinence-only education] were no more likely than those in the control group to have abstained from sex, and, among those who reported having had sex, they had similar numbers of sexual partners.
Contrary to concerns raised by critics of abstinence education, youth in the program group were no more likely to have unprotected sex than youth in the control group."[1]

- Mathematica Policy Research

Index of Change in Adolescent Births - 1994 to 2003 :

Childbearing of all adolescent females under 15 years of age

Decrease in the birthrate of adolescents: 53%

Decrease in the abortion rate of adolescents: 44%

Childbearing of white adolescent females under 15 years of age

Decrease in number of births: 38%

Increase in the population of white females 10 to 14: 10%

Childbearing of black adolescent females under 15 years of age

Decrease in number of births: 58%

Increase in the population of black females 10 to 14: 24%

Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., author of Children at Risk (Transaction, 2010), is Senior Fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute, Concerned Women for America's think-tank.

[1] Mathematica Policy Research, Evaluation of Abstinence Education Programs Funded Under Title V, Section 510, www.mathematica-mpr.com/family_support/abstinence.asp .