Think Again: The Costs of Enforced Sexual Ignorance

Eric Alterman has a column up, Think Again: The Costs of Enforced Sexual Ignorance, in which he rightly excoriates the people who propose abstinence only education.

However, he misses the bigger point:

These programs are chosen as if specifically designed not to work. One long-term evaluation of 10 state abstinence-only programs concluded, “Abstinence-only programs show little evidence of sustained (long-term) impact on attitudes and intentions. Worse, they show some negative impacts on youth’s willingness to use contraception, including condoms, to prevent negative sexual health outcomes related to sexual intercourse. Importantly, only in one state did any program demonstrate short-term success in delaying the initiation of sex; none of these programs demonstrates evidence of long-term success in delaying sexual initiation among youth exposed to the programs or any evidence of success in reducing other sexual risk-taking behaviors among participants.”

(emphasis mine)

He seems to think that these programs are wrong headed, and failures as a result.

They are not. They are failures by design.

The driving force for the people behind these programs is that they believe that sex is evil.

The scripture , "It is better to marry than to burn", states that marriage is preferable to lechery, but inferior to celibacy, and people behind this are not interested in protecting children, they are interested in punishing them.

In fact, not only to they oppose premarital sex and abortion, they oppose birth control for married couples too. Their goal is not to overturn just Roe, but also Baird. They want women barefoot and pregnant.