Maybe the country IS doomed

I watched the segment that 60 Minutes ran Sunday evening on federally-funded abstinence programs: Taking the Pledge 05/22/05.  It focused on a program called Silver Ring Thing, which asks teenagers to take a pledge not abstain from sex until marriage.

It stresses all the bad things that sex can supposedly do to teenagers.  It also heavily emphasizes that condoms are unreliable.

As depicted on the program, the Silver Ring Thing program has a heavily Christian religious component.  But they can still receive federal funds, because they claim to offer an alternative non-religious program.

Now, for most teenagers, abstaining from sex at least until they are 18 is probably a good thing, as a rule.  A lot of teenagers just aren't prepared for the emotional effects of having a sexual relationship.  (Some adults aren't either, but that's another story!)  So encouraging abstinence for teenagers is at least not a bad thing.

But the reality also is that many teenagers do have sex before they are 18.  And to deliberately give teenagers - or anybody - false medical information is irresponsible.  Promoting the use of condoms has had a major benefit in combatting the spread of HIV and other sexually-transmitted diseases.  And, used correctly, condoms are nearly 100% effective both in preventing pregnancy and protecting people from STDs.

Trying to scare teenagers into thinking that condoms don't work in practice results in kids not using them when they do start having sex.  Plus, given the nature of the Silver Ring Thing program at least, the kids who attend are likely to come from home environments where messages are communicated that sex is bad and sinful and shameful.  So they are likely to be more reluctant than others to seek out reliable information on birth control and condoms.

Plus, hey, it's not exactly new that teenagers don't necessarily think things through carefully.  As crazy as adults can get over sex, that shouldn't surprise anyone.  So if kids are given the message that its wrong to even think about using condoms - and I'm sure that's a message most of the participants take away from a Silver Ring Thing presentation - then they're more likely to come up with things like, "Well, it just happened on the spur of the moment.  Look, we didn't use a condom or anything so that shows we didn't mean to do it!"

60 Minutes interviewed Peter Bearman of Columbia University, who they identified as co-author of "the most comprehensive study ever done on adolescent health and sexuality." He said that kids who do take the abstinence pledge tend to postpone having sex for up to 18 months longer than others, so that is an indication that the pledge may be somewhat effective.  They didn't go into details about that statistics, like whether it was controlled for a more restrictive attitude about sex among the families of kids who take the pledge.  An article co-authored by Bearman is available here: After the promise: The STD consequences of adolescent virginity pledges by Hannah Brückner and Peter Bearman Journal of Adolescent Health April 2005.

But Bearman stressed that does not mean that abstinence education is more effective in protecting the kids' health than a more responsible and honest kind of sex education.  He mentioned two factors in particular.  One is that 88% of the kids who take the pledge wind up having sex before marriage anyway.  (Big surprise there!)  But they are significantly more likely when they do start having sex not to use condoms.

Also, he said that kids who do take the pledge are also significantly more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behavior than kids who don't, expecially oral and anal sex.  He thinks that many of these kids must think of that as "technically" preserving their virginity by not have vaginal intercourse.  However, in the journal article linked above, Brückner and Bearman say that while their study "provides some support" for the idea that this particular behavior pattern would result in "greater than expected STD acquisition among pledgers," on this particular behavior pattern their study provides "an insufficient basis from which to make inference." (See below for more on this.)

Maybe American culture really is doomed.

Unless responsible citizens and honest religious people can stop the Christian Right from ramming this kind of dangerous nonsense down people's throats.

Here's what Denny Pattyn, founder of Silver Ring Thing and identified on the show as "a Christian youth minister" has to say about using condoms for birth control and to protect oneself from sexually-transmitted diseases:

"A kid’s part of your program, and he comes to you and says, 'You know, I’m going to have sex. I’ve reached a point and I’m going to do this. Should I use a condom?' What do you say?" asks [Ed] Bradley.

"My own daughter, my 16-year-old daughter, tells me she’s going to be sexually active. I would not tell her to use a condom," says Pattyn. "I don't think it'll protect her. It won’t protect her heart. It won’t protect her emotional life. And it’s not going to protect her. I don’t want her to get out there and think that she’s going to be protected using a condom."

This is one situation where religion can do real harm.  Okay, so you think it's God's will that people don't have sex outside of marriage.  So don't have sex until you're married, and you're perfectly free to advocate that as the right course for everyone.

But there's no excuse for lying to teenagers about medical realitiesthat they need to protect their health.  Doing that is just ugly fanaticism.

To expand on one point from the Brückner and Bearman study, here is what they have to say about the effectiveness of abstinence pledges in reducing rates of STDs:

Contrary to expectations, we found no significant differences in STD infection rates between pledgers and nonpledgers, despite the fact that they transition to first sex later, have less cumulative exposure, fewer partners, and lower levels of nonmonogamous partners. Examination of the point estimates revealed small or nonexistent differences between pledgers and others, with the exception of white respondents. Advocates for abstinence-only education assert that premarital abstinence and postmarital sex are necessary and sufficient for avoiding negative consequences of sexual activity, such as STDs. This assertion collides with the realities of adolescents’ and young adults’ lives in several ways. First, although pledgers experience sexual debut later than others, most of them will eventually engage in premarital sex. Those who do report lower frequency of condom use at first intercourse. Those who do not are more likely to substitute oral and/or anal sex for vaginal sex. (my emphasis)

In other words, the abstinence programs don't reduce STDs.  And since the "pledgers" tend to engage in more high-risk sexual behaviors and also are less likely to use condoms, if it's true that pledgers don't have higher STD rates, that's in a miracle in itself.