First, I'll start with the "Executive Summary" that starts the linked article. The link below is to a Technical Paper, written by a group of professionals for the "Medical Institute for Sexual Health", in response to a couple of Articles that were published in the January 2006 Issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. The first is entitled "Abstinence and Abstinency-Only Education; A Review of US Policies and Programs" and the second one is entitled "Absinence-Only Policies and Programs; A Position Paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine". Both of these were written by a team of authors headed by John Santelli and the Position Paper simply restates the arguments presented in the Review Article.
The authors of these articles claim all sorts of crazy stuff about Abstinence Education Programs, but offer very poor arguments to support their claims. They claim that Abstinence programs threaten Fundamental Human Rights to Health, Information and Life and that such programs are Unscientifically, Ethically and Morally Problematic. These authors are critical of any Educational Policies that are in any way influenced by Morality and accuse Abstinence Proponents of being primarily concerned with Religious and Moral Beliefs, whether than Public Health. They also accuse such of using Morally and Culturally Specific Definitions of Abstinence. They claim that Educational Policies that have Moral Components are Unscientific and that Abstinence Policies are in conflict with Public Health Principles, yet they have no evidence to support this point of view or opinion.
In the paper that I have provided a link to below, the authors respond to all of these accusations and show how the articles that they are responding to contain Serious Omissions of key areas of research that don't support their point of view; Misrepresentations to the point of acutually stating that a source says something that it does not; Deviations from Accepted Practices or Nonstandard Research Methods, Opinions Presented as Facts and Faulty Logic, such as concluding that the failure to prove an affirmative is proof of a negative. They say that the Scholarship is lacking in rigor, that their Key Points are based on Non-Peer-Reviewed Sources, that they site a lot of Secondary and Tertiary Sources, whether than Original Ones and Opinion Pieces and Editorials and On-line News Magazines, whether than Scientific Articles. They fail to inform the readers when their key point are supported by Non-Peer-Reviewed References and some of their Declarative Statements are not Referenced at all.
One interesting contradiction that was pointed out was how in the First Half of the Review Article, the idea of "Moral Beliefs" is rejected, yet in the Second Half of this same article, they talk about Human Rights in relation to "Ethics". This contradiction is an Unsound and Misleading, yet Clever, Plausible and Subtle Argument or Reasoning (Definition of Sophistry), or as the authors of the linked article put it, "The authors initial rejection of 'Moral Beliefs' and their later adoption of 'Ethics' as a guiding principle for sex education is the height of Sophistry."
In the Linked Article, one of the first things that the authors do is define a few terms including "Moral" and "Ethical", to show how similar these two words are, in that, part of the definition of "Ethical" is "Conforming to Moral Standards".
I don't want to leave this page in the Linked Article (Page 4) without mentioning that they mentioned the limited scope of this one particular study involving only one of the 50 states, which happened to be Texas. This caught my eye since one of my commenters to a previous Post also gave me a link to a Texas Study that showed Ineffective Abstinence Programs, yet it is not logical to conclude that the presence of one group of Abstinence Programs that doesn't work proves that none of the Abstinence Programs work.
The "Definitions of Absinence" section of the Linked Article (Page 4) is very good.
Later in the Linked Article, they state that "Despite having previously rejected Moral considerations to inform public health prevention messages, throughout the last 3 sections of this article, the authors tout internationally recognized Ethical obligations as the ne plus ultra of public health decision making. They appear oblivious to the fact that Ethics has to do with Conforming to Moral Standards or to professional standards of conduct."
The other word that the authors needed to define was the word "Virgin", for in the articles they were responding to, the word "Virgin" was claimed to be a moral term, yet a recent PupMed search of the term yielded 197 articles, so it is obviously a "Medical Term" and is defined in very simple, morally neutral, terms in Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary.
Gee! How in the world are we supposed to study the Medical affects of having sex or not having sex, if we keep removing words from the Medical Dictionary just because they are occasionally also used in relation to Morality? That's absurd!
One more point that comes to mind is a couple of Research Studies that were Omitted from the Evaluation done in the Articles that were written opposing Abstinence Programs. Starting with the Chart on the page marked page 9 at the bottom and reading on to the first 6 paragraphs of page 10, it is explained why "The Absence of even a remote allusion to these studies by Santelli et al is particularly Inexcusable." This is especially true in light of their statement that "Based on our review of the evaluations of specific AO(sic)E Curricula...in actual practice the efficacy of AO(sic)E Interventions may approach Zero." In response to this, the Authors of the Linked Article have said that "The conspicuous Omission of the Articles, coupled with the authors' Hyperbolic Declaration, demonstrates Systematic Misrepresentation of the Evidence."
There were many more good points made in the linked article. I've only had the time to touch on a few. Here is the Link.
The Attack on Abstinence Education: Fact of Fallacy?
22 comments:
not scientific huh? let's see;
1 is the teaching of abstinence the teaching of a birth control method? yes.
2 is the teaching of abstinence the teaching of prevention of desease? yes.
3 is abstinence a logical choice? yes.
4 will the teaching of abstinence result in prevention 100% no
will the teaching of any other method result in the prevention 100%? no.
5 if practiced, will abstinence result in a 100% prevention? yes.
will any other method be 100%? no
so, if the idea is the prevention of pregnancy and desease which method of birth control should be emphasized, that method which guarantees the results we seek or that method that cannot guarantee the results we seek?
which method of birth control shows a greater respect of life?
which method of birth control shows a greater respect of others?
which method of birth control could be seen as a means to self-gratification?
which method of birth control guaratees no day after regrets?
which method of birth control will result in no one night stands?
which method of birth control method guarantees that one partner will benefit from the experience while the other may have to suffer the consequences?
is this scientifically provable? yes.
is the argument strictly of morality? no
Very Good, Griper,
Your words are excellent!
I guess I could just add...
Which Method of Birth Control shows a greater respect for oneself?
Which Method of Birth Control Builds Character?
Which Method of Birth Control results in more talking and Communication with a Clear Head?
Which Method of Birth Control clouds thinking while making important decisions, such as who should I marry?
And
Which Method of Birth Control leads to Self-Discipline, Respect and Trust within a Relationship?
i guess i just get tired of everyone thinking that the argument of abstinence is considered as purely a religious moral stance.
Yeh, what's really happening is that Atheists are trying to make every issue that has anything remotely to do with Morality into a Religious, whether than a Health issue, so that they do not have to look honestly at the Scientific Facts.
You're going to like my next Post, Griper, for it relates to how this phenomena is happening with several issues, not just this one.
Of course abstinence works: no coitus, no pregnancy, STD, guilt, etc. The logic is inescapable. The
'attack', as I understand it, is
gov't funded abs-only. That rationale being based on the percentage of those practicing abstinence that reject it for whatever reason. Some do, hence
high teen preganancies & STDs. So,
some sex educators believe in providing birth control methods, which as you have argued are not
as good. But they are better than nothing and incomplete knowledge.
As I have argued previous, the teen pregnancy/STD rates in Europe are much lower than ours, IMO because they are more pragmatic in their approach. Abstinence works perfectly: but it must be adhered to...which appears to be impossible for many young people.
I guess if we knew why they ignore
what they have been told, we would have the answer....
This post is about the link to a 17 page article on this very subject. Unfortunately, it is not only 17 pages long, but also parts of it are a little technical. I'm still having a little trouble fully digesting it myself and may do some more summarizing work on it a little later.
The Linked Article is a defense against another Article written in support of your position that Abstinence Programs do not work. The bottom line is that this has not been established.
My continuous struggle to argue this with you as effectively as I would like to off the top of my head shows me evidence that I am going to have to continue my summarizing project relating to the Article that I have linked to above.
The Federal government gives large amounts of $$ to the states for abstinence-only sex ed. 14 states have turned down this free $$, and more are planning to..for the simple reason I noted above. See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2007/12/16/ST2007121600086.html
for a (thankfully shorter than 17 pages) summary of the situation.
I understand the argument that providing 'safe sex' information to teenagers might encourage them even more than their natural adolescent endocrine drives.
The argument cuts both ways, though, as I pointed out about the kids in Europe. The real problem reminds of the old adage..you can lead a horse to water, but...
It has not been established, BB, that the traditional form of Sex Education works any better than the Abstinence Programs. When we teach Abstinence, some don't practice it, yet when we teach about contraceptives, many still don't use them. Either way, kids just don't listen, so what's the difference?
I don't think it is right to always rely on research from other countries either. The only research that is truly relevant is that which is done on Abstinence Programs and on Comprehensive Sex Ed Programs here in the US.
The "lead a horse to water" analogy has a flaw in it that no one ever talks about. In the dessert, they make camels drink water before a long trip by giving them salt. This just goes to show you that there often are solutions, but we just haven't found them yet.
"Either way, kids just don't listen, so what's the difference?"
...uh, Europe? Well, I wish there were a solution as well..so do the Catholics, hardly any male wants to be celibate any more and their
priesthood is drying up. The drive to reproduce is basic, and in mammals is at it's peak pretty early in the lifespan...so that camel and salt thing makes me think of the old Army basic training diet....saltpeter. heh
The point is BB,
Neither program works as well as we would like it to. So if both of the programs have problems, than it is not fair to pick on one and not the other. For the other program to be claimed as superior to Abstinence Programs, evidence to this would have to be shown, but that has not been the case and European Research doesn't cut it. We need to find something that works here in the U.S.
One would think that a comprehensive program, including
abstinence, self-value, condoms, pills and all the rest would be the answer. But, middle ground and compromise is one of those things that has gone the way of the founding fathers....now days it's 'My way or the highway'..
If you're not with me, you're against me. Gratifying, but not
productive. Anyhoo, since both my girls have long since grown up and
survived adolescence, I'm left thinking, gee, what a lucky lib. :)
Yeh, that's that Black and White sort of thinking. It either has to be this way or that and there's nothing in the middle.
I guess I ought to note that the "Abstinence-Only" Programs do not forbid the teaching of Contraceptives. All that is required is that the Birth Control is taught in a separate session and not during the same class in which the Abstinence is taught. When the two are taught together, the Birth Control teaching sort of causes the Abstinence teaching to be de-emphasized and in order to make the teaching of Abstinence work, the one teaching it has to believe in it.
From the Dept. of It Takes One
To Know One, we learn it is "do
as I say"...not "do as I do ...kids, you can tell them all you want, but they are just kids....
I was Abstinent until I was married, so the "'Do as I say.', not 'Do as I do.'" phrase does not apply to me, yet even if it did, I have an answer for that too.
If everyone continued to only do as well as their parents from one generation to the next, there would never be any growth and improvement. Based on this reasoning, it is better to try and do better than one's parents, whether than only just as good.
Too often, we just assume that Abstinence until marriage is impossible, but the truth is that people do it all the time and though maybe not as often, neither the less, it is in fact, still done today. It is a mistake to simply write this possibility off.
I never thought that I would say this, since I'm such a slow reader, yet the article that you left me a link too was too brief. I would have liked to have read the entire interview. The article, itself, did not explain Palin's entire story, nor even elaborate on why she feels that Abstinence is "not realistic".
Oophs! It looks like I've got to run. More later.
This particular case caught my attention because of the highly public 'abstinence only' stance of that family. The daughter apparently realizes from this experience that does not always work..and is experiencing some of the downsides of teen pregnancy which abstinence (and in fairness, any other teen sex ed program) warns. Had this young girl been raised in a poor and harsh environment, we probably wouldn't notice. It is sort of like the
big time preacher in CO who got caught with a boy prostitute..you know, "Do as I say, etc.." Had she access to condums/birth control, would her actions have been any LESS MORAL than the obvious unprotected sex in which she engaged?
I don't think that anyone has ever claimed that teaching Abstinence "Always Works". It just so happens that teaching "Safe Sex" doesn't "Always Work" either, so what's the point?
The "Do as I say, etc." statement only applies when the parent has failed in this area, which I have already pointed out is not always the case.
Oh and, BTW, Condoms are not that effective.
Getting back to what I said earlier, the article that you left me a link to is too brief and did not explain or elaborate on why Bristal Palin feels that Abstinence is "not realistic".
Now that I'm rereading the article, the only thing I can find as her explanation that "Abstinence is 'not realistic'" is her statement that "sex is 'more and more accepted now... among kids my age.'". What is she saying; that trying to go against what is accepted is not realistic? If jumping off a cliff is an accepted practice, should we all do it?
The fact that Bristol has now stated that the awkward talk with her parents was "harder than labor" and that "You should just wait 10 years. It would just be so much easier." shows evidence that in principle she agrees with her mother.
I guess the one thing that really sticks out in relation to this article is that if one of the main things that makes the Abstinence idea unrealistic is the fact that "sex is 'more and more accepted now... among kids my age'", than part of the solution is to try and go back to the time in which it was less accepted. Continuing to teach Abstinence and to believe that this option is still possible does in fact empower some kids to Abstain.
We need to get back to the research, whether than just examples from individual lives, for their are individual lives that support all sort of things depending on which individual life we are looking at.
It is also important to remember that the goal is to improve on the statistics, not to find something that "Always Works" 100% of the time. That expectation is not realistic.
Since the article that I've left a link to is so long, I'm going to have to review it again.
"Oh and, BTW, Condoms are not that effective." ..compared to condum-free sex, I rather think they are..
Yeh, but compared to Abstinence, they are not an acceptable risk.
I understand the 'Catch-22'. If provided condoms or pills, they will be encouraged to engage in teenage sex. If encouraged to abstain, some may not. Interesting dilemma, which is at the bottom of the opposing POVs.
You know, BB,
What I would really love to do is to go back and reread the research that I have posted a link to in the above post. What it is really is an Evaluation of Research, which is even better than just reviewing the data from a single research, yet unfortunately, when Scientists and Research Evaluators allow their own biases to effect what they report, sometimes you can't even trust those who Evaluate Research and it becomes necessary to really study something intensely while pushing ones own biases aside.
Since the article is long, I don't know how long it is going to take me to find the time to once again review it, yet I do feel that the answer to our dilemma can be found in research. It's just that the research has to be looked at honestly and not through the lenses of our own biases.
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