It feels like Groundhog Day, the movie. Every time Congress takes up abstinence-only education programs, you can count on the media to trot out a story claiming abstinence-only education doesn’t work. They did it in April of this year with the flawed Mathematica study and they’re doing it again with a "new" study put out by the pleasantly-named National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
The Associated Press story, "Report: Abstinence programs don’t work" is a classic example of liberal-agenda promotion. From the slanted opening paragraph to the failure to cite or quote even a single advocate of abstinence-only education, the entire piece is a pitch for progressive comprehensive sex education programs. Just look at the lede:
Programs that focus exclusively on abstinence have not been shown to affect teenager sexual behavior, although they are eligible for tens of millions of dollars in federal grants, according to a study released by a nonpartisan group that seeks to reduce teen pregnancies.
You’d never know from this sentence that many researchers have found that abstinence-only education often has significant success in delaying teen sexual behavior, or that the author of the study has a dog in the fight over abstinence vs. comprehensive sex education.
Before digging further into the bias there are a couple of things – just a couple – that AP reporter H. Josef Hebert did right. First, he identifies the author of the study, Douglas Kirby, as a researcher for ETR Associates, and acknowledges that ETR is a leading developer and marketer of several of the comprehensive sex education curricula reviewed in Kirby’s report. Hebert also acknowledges that several earlier studies reviewed in Kirby’s report were written by Kirby himself. Here’s what Hebert did wrong.
– He includes no rebuttal from critics of the study, or from abstinence-only advocates. A fair and balanced report would have included information from the Abstinence Clearinghouse. In a press release put out November 7 in response to Kirby’s study, the organization said: "This study says nothing new that opponents to abstinence education haven’t already said. This study indicates clearly that it focused primarily on two previous Mathematica studies among a few others that evaluated abstinence. They are providing no new information but rather the same old distorted information based on a poorly-designed evaluation with weak results."
– In reporting that "tens of millions of dollars" in federal grants is received by abstinence-only education, the story fails to report that comprehensive sex education programs (the kind this study reports as effective) receive 12 times as much, according to sources at the Abstinence Clearinghouse.
– The story fails to mention that the "nonpartisan group" that sponsored the study, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, lists as one of its "Trustee Emeriti" none other than ETR’s Douglas Kirby, the author of this latest abstinence-bashing study.
Kimberly Martinez, Executive Director of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, told us at the Culture and Media Institute, "This is another effort by opponents of abstinence education to try to influence policy makers with faulty information."
Another voice AP could have quoted is Kyleen Wright, President of Texans for Life Coalition, who commented online about the article, "Liberals and ‘sexperts’ are trying to rewrite history with their junk science in order to affect the funding debate underway in Congress." She added, "The fact remains that during the 1980s, teen pregnancy and birth rates, abortion and STD rates were through the roof, having doubled by the end of the decade. This was when the condom/contraception groups reigned supreme, entering the schools in record numbers while exploiting AIDS fears.… When the devastating numbers were released in the early 1990s, many parents, community activists and organizations began offering abstinence education. As a result, the numbers began to decline immediately, and have declined every year since. We have seen 60-year lows this decade, something the contraception crowd was never able to accomplish."
AP could have sought out such sources in order to present an unbiased story. But when it comes to abstinence the media only know one side – the liberal progressive side. And they conveniently report on it when it suits a political purpose.
For an in depth look at how the media have consistently attacked abstinence see CMI’s Eye on Culture report Sex, Lies and Bias.
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The AP is a left-wing organization
November 11, 2007 - 16:25 ET by Kevin HalpernI've been in the news business for over 30 years, and during that time the Associated Press has been progressively tilting to the left, and now they are there. Their in-house generated stories are mostly journalistic trash.
What the story should be:
November 11, 2007 - 17:25 ET by mattm"... 60-year lows ... something the contraception crowd was never able to accomplish."
This is because their porpose was never to prevent unplanned/unwanted pregnancy, just the opposite is true. They want to keep profitting off the condom, penecillin and abortion industries, especially the latter.
They also want to create a huge segment of the population which continues to demand legal and government-funded abortion and sex "education" programs, thereby insuring a huge voting bloc that will empower and enrich them.
This is, and has been a four-decade long scandal that is never reported on in the MSM.
Old, Retired and glad of
November 11, 2007 - 17:30 ET by ScrapironOld, Retired and glad of it.
Democrats and media types have to stop the children from saying no so they can abuse them. Otherwise no sex on the left.
The left needs teenage
November 11, 2007 - 17:43 ET by MidAmericaThe left needs teenage pregnancies. The higher the number of women who will need or have used abortion the greater the number of women who will support left leaning politicians.
The attitude is that teenagers will 'do it' anyway so must merely be protected against any conesquences. Well certain teenagers will do drugs and alcohol too. Why don't schools supply clean needles and safe drinking rooms? (all without the parents knowledge of course)
They need sexually active teens
November 12, 2007 - 11:37 ET by GrannyGrump42You can't sell pregnancy testing, STD testing and treatment, abortion, and birth control to chaste kids.
The contraceptive/abortion industry has no more interest in keeping teens from having sex (or from getting STDs or from getting pregnant) than R. J. Reynods has in keeping people from smoking.
And when you consider that they bill almost all their "services" to the taxpayers at rates that would make a defense contractor tremble in admiration, you've got their whole agenda sewed up.
Abstinence is free. How can you make a buck off that?
}}---> Abstinance
November 12, 2007 - 11:46 ET by Cool ArrowMeanwhile the Governor of Texas gets berated for wanting to protect our girls from HPV infection.
Abstinence does work when the teacher is not advocating sex
November 11, 2007 - 18:25 ET by Lame CherryI doubt most people here can remember a hint of rural America where abstinence was a way of life, because there were certain factors teenage boys and girls were taught.
No one wanted a girl who was used for the simple reason no man nor family wanted to sit in Church, the ball game, school or at parades knowing everyone laid your wife or daughter in law.
Every guy heard everything from they would be killed by their parents to if they got a girl knocked up they were out of the house and there was no hope for the future.
This did not stop all fornication, but it certainly did stop the majority and it worked because all of the adults were not making fun of the abstinence AS THEY KNEW THEY WOULD BE THE ONES STUCK WITH THE PUBLIC HUMILIATION AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS their kids came up with.
In today's schools program, there is no Bill Cosby respect for girls being taught as he so eloquently spoke on his television years ago. You treat a girl as the honored person she was in expecting her to be a lady and act like a lady. No school program ever mentions God, the huge problems, the misery and the emotional problems of sex when young.
It is all about a body function and when it is coming from pedophile teachers using the programs as ways to get the kids thinking about sex, talking about sex, so adult teachers can violate them........well for some reason it is horrid when Catholic priests do it, but liberals just think it is wonderful when teachers are doing it........of course it is so liberals can molest the kids.
The dignity is gone out of sex in modern programs of the human soul. They treat people as animals and that is what one turns out. The world is now ripe with a crop of perverted children. Their parents were doped up loosers with rich parents who violated societal laws and now have unwanted children who see a weekly new daddy making mommy groan and on weekends they see the new step flavor of the month that daddy is tooling.
The end result are these pierced children reflecting their pierced hearts and tramp stamp children trying to make themselves more beautiful as their own parents don't love them........but boy howdy does the raped teenagers down the street and the pedophiles at clubs doping them up and giving them attention.
AP advocating this is simply advocating the pedophile agenda sweeping this world.........as numbers of AP reporters get their stations in pedophile Asia.
*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS
I must of missed something
November 11, 2007 - 18:48 ET by well99"No one wanted a girl who was used for the simple reason no man nor family wanted to sit in Church, the ball game, school or at parades knowing everyone laid your wife or daughter in law." It takes two to tangle. My teenage years were in the country. I agree abstinence is important but there was a double standard. Guys were studs and girl were considered low lives. I don’t agree with those idiots in Maine. They are so far out of it. I believe in birth control for older teens. The reason why is parents are not doing their job. You can blame liberals all you want but parents today are more interested in being friends than parents. They are the one ultimately responsible. You bring a child in this world you take care of it. Get involved in their lives set the standards and live by them yourself. Get involve in PTA and don’t let these left wing twits indoctrinate you kids. Bottom line your kids should be your first priority.
The difference between morality and strategy
November 12, 2007 - 03:10 ET by KC MulvilleAbstinence is not just a strategy to reduce unwanted pregnancies; it’s a moral statement about how society should view sex itself. Focusing only on strategy is a diversion; it distracts us from their attempts to remove morality from sex. “Sex education” advocates inevitably teach teens to experiment with sex in the first place. They promote a morally-inert climate where sex is just good clean fun. They deny the sanctity of sex. Their mythology treats sex merely as an experience where partners merely consent to provide pleasure; it therefore becomes mere sex. The only sin is not reciprocating the pleasure.
Abstinence is about morality. Note that I didn’t say it was about religion. There’s a difference. We don’t all have to belong to the same denomination, or any faith for that matter, to come to a social understanding about our common morality. Sexual morality falls under that. We can all agree to teach our children not to take advantage of intimacy.
When you refuse to discourage sexual “experimentation,” what are you really teaching? You’re cheating teens when you teach them how to have sex without commitment. For the sake of avoiding pregnancy outside of commitment, you’re inevitably telling them to hold something back. But the power of sex is that it unifies. It dissolves the differences between two individuals to make them one, if even for a short while. That only comes from the willingness to be vulnerable, to be truly intimate.
Commitment is the insurance, so to speak, that frees you to be completely vulnerable. When you teach sex without that willingness to be completely intimate (which you have to do, to avoid commitment), you’re teaching teens to cheat.
What are you really teaching? Hold back. Don’t be intimate. Have sex at half power. Try to make up in quantity what you lose in quality.
No wonder we have so much sexual dysfunction in this society. Sex education has “taught” kids how to have bad sex.