Stress Abstinence Bill Will Mandate Truly Comprehensive Sex Ed

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January 2002

By Bernadette Vissani. Coordinator for NJ Coalition for Abstinence Education, and guest author for the NJ Family Policy Council.

It’s been over a decade in the making, but finally New Jersey has a new law that mandates the stressing of abstinence when sex education is taught in public schools. Supporters shout a thankful “Finally, common sense”; opponents worry that progress will be undone. Why such
a clash of ideologies? A clarification of terms is in order.

In response to Asbury Park Press editorial “Undoing Progress on Sex Education”, one must ask, what type of progress are you referring to? Progress in sex education during the teenage years should be defined as an increase in the number of teens who choose to abstain from sexual activity. That is the only definition that makes sense because of the very high risks to youth when sexual activity is initiated so early in life. Progress, as a result, would be reflected in decreasing rates of non-marital teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Instead, after more than 25 years of “comprehensive” sex education, we instead see major increases in both.

When one defines progress as the increasing presence of comprehensive sex education, as opponents of the bill do, then of course one would worry about the effect of abstinence education on all the other components of comprehensive sex education. Opponents of stressing abstinence are mostly concerned that increased time for such education would mean decreased time for contraceptive information. That anxiety is driven by the dichotomy of the educational goals pursued by both camps. In an ideal world, both could agree that abstinence should be stressed. But in the real world, the stressing of abstinence doesn’t quite fit so well with all the enabling information that today’s comprehensive sex education provides.

For example, take a look at what passes for comprehensive sex education. From Planned Parenthood, one of the major proponents of comprehensive sex education, we read this on their website: condoms are nearly 100% effective against HIV, less effective against herpes. That is the understatement of the century! The effectiveness rate of 85% against life-threaten-ing HIV is hardly close to 100%, and in fact, there is no evidence to support that condoms protect at all against herpes and most other STDs. An expert panel, convened by the National Institutes of Health (2001), after studying 138 peer-reviewed studies of condom effectiveness, said “evidence is currently insufficient to provide an accurate assessment of the effectiveness of condoms in preventing spread of chlamydial infection, syphilis, chancroid, trichomoniasis, genital herpes and genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. The entire report is available at www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/stds/condomreport.pdf. Truly comprehensive sex education would also accurately describe the true risks of early sexual activity.

Can an educator really feel good about leaving out some facts that are inconvenient while omitting those that would make the choice of abstinence more appealing? This is why the Stress Abstinence Bill is so important. We know that in classrooms across the state students receive in class only a mere mention of abstinence, followed by a day, several days or a week or more of contraceptive information. Frequently methods of sexual activity without intercourse are encouraged, without full disclosure of the accompanying high risk for disease transmission . Abstinence education needs at least equal time. In addition to the presentation of the benefits of choosing abstinence, students need encouragement, support and skill-building practices to remain firm in that wise decision. STRESSING ABSTINENCE is a health message and the right way to go!

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