Conservatives already practicing deception on findings of new ‘abstinence-only’ study

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Yesterday I wrote about the University of Pennsylvania study on sexual education among a group of teens who tried out a variety of sexual education approaches. The study found that the group that tried an abstinence-only message was more likely to delay sexual activity. In fact, only 33% of the group of young African-Americans in Philadelphia that took the abstinence course began sexual activity two years after they started the course, relative to the 52% who were taught safe-sex only, and 42% who were taught a comprehensive approach.

To some, the study might confirm the belief that a comprehensive approach has a reasonable shot of delaying sexual activity among most children. Robin Marty’s write-up at RHRealityCheck does a good job of making this argument.

But if you work for the conservative Heritage Foundation where you are paid to make the case that federal money should be diverted to abstinence-only sex ed programs, you instead are apparently also paid to swiftly twist the findings of this study in a coordinated manner, and pre-emptively accuse your critics of being “motivated by ideology.”

Take Robert Rector writing at the National Review’s blog:

The abstinence program proved very effective in delaying the onset of sexual activity. Students in this program were one third less likely to initiate sexual activity when compared to students in the other three groups. And if these same students did become sexually active, they were not less likely to use contraceptives than other students. By contrast, safe sex and comprehensive sex-ed classes had no effect on student behavior; students in these classes did not reduce sexual activity nor increase contraceptive use when compared to the control group. [Emphasis added]

His colleague Christine Kim on the Heritage Foundation’s blog pretty much reads off the same scripted talking points:

In contrast, study found that alternative types of sex ed failed.  “Safe sex” programs (which promote contraception only) and “comprehensive sex ed” programs (which teach both abstinence and contraceptive use), had no effect on teen sexual behavior.  These programs neither reduced teen sex nor did they increase contraceptive use among teens, which is their major emphasis. [Emphasis added]

In fact, the press release announcing the study’s findings itself would beg to differ regarding the effect on sexual behavior:

The eight-hour and 12-hour comprehensive programs appeared to be associated with reduced reports of having multiple partners when compared with the control group.

So, rather than ‘no effect on student behavior’ or ‘no effect on teen sexual behavior,’ the Penn study found that of the 42% of students who became sexually active after they took the comprehensive approach to sex ed, they were less likely to engage in the riskiest behavior of sexual activity with multiple partners.

While we’ve already established that both Rector and Kim of the Heritage Foundation are deceiving their audiences about the study’s findings. But more than that, it’s important to keep in mind what the researchers’ bottom-line conclusion was:

The findings do not indicate that this intervention is the best approach or that other programs should be abandoned, the authors note. “Tackling the problem of STIs among young people requires an array of approaches implemented in a variety of venues,” they conclude. “What the present results suggest is that theory-based abstinence-only interventions can be part of this mix. Using theory-based abstinence-only interventions selectively might contribute to the overall goal of curbing the spread of STIs in both the United States and other countries.”

Look, I think it’s great that students who take an abstinence-only approach are not more likely to have unprotected sex if they do begin having sex – this answers one of the questions I asked in my post yesterday. But we’re not talking about a wide swath of difference here between the comprehensive approach and the abstinence-only approach – about 9%. If 9% more 11-15-year-olds start having sex after they take a comprehensive educational program relative to a control group, I’d rather they have sex with a single partner than multiple partners. It seems like a better public policy outcome because sex with multiple partners is riskier than the mere fact that a young person had sex.

This gets to the point I made yesterday about what exactly makes up the ‘public good’ of delaying the start of sexual activity. Sure, we don’t want 11-year-olds having sex. But if they do have sex, we want it to be less risky. It’s good to see that those who got the abstinence message are no more likely to have unprotected sex, but if they’re more likely to have sex with multiple partners because they never got the message that more partners results in more risk, the good of ‘delay’ is mitigated among the percentage who don’t.

So before you buy into the Heritage Foundation’s talking points, which are no doubt spreading rapidly, remember that the Dr. John Jemmott and his colleagues do not conclude that there is no benefit to a comprehensive approach to sex education.