Abstinence Program Shows Success

Nope, not missing a thing.  Abstinance works every time it is tried.  no other method has that rate of success.

Doesn't this suffer from selection bias?

I think sex-ed or no sex-ed has little to do with whether teenagers are sexually active or not (although sex-ed might make them more informed). I think it's the parents who make or break their children.

I assume that parents sorted their children according to their own preference which mostly mapped 100% to their children because the children were 12.

If you tought your child to abstain you put your child in a class where other parents who think like you put their children.

It's no wonder the results reflect these decisions.

It would be more interesting to do such a study with older teenagers, aged 16 and above. And maybe I grew up in a very protected environment in Germany but 12-year olds and sex???

Oh, this is just wrong. The moment you have children, whatever the source (own womb, wife's womb, girlfriend's womb, adoption etc.) you have to stop meandering.

As for Bristol, I don't believe she and her boyfriend really wanted to get married. I believe it was for show to save the campaign. After I first thought that I convinced myself that they would break up after the elections. And they did.

Maybe I am being too conservative here but I don't think there is an excuse for what Bristol and her boyfriend did. They SHOULD have got married. And if couldn't because they didn't like each other, they shouldn't have become pregnant in the first place.

This study is severely flawed. 23% of the students were already sexually active so they’re almost guaranteed to have sex again in the next 2 years, of course the parents are going to put them in the sex ed class, the virgin ship has sailed they just want to keep them from a pregnancy or STD.

For the rest like Leauki said there 12 they’re mostly going into the abstinence class and since the primary outcome was assed by self-report what do you think these kids are going to say after they’ve been told not to have sex? they were probably afraid if they said yes they would have to take the class over again. Kids rarely admit failure.

The study also doesn’t asses pregnancy and STD rates, which have consistently shown to be higher in step with religious based abstinence only education.  

I’m all for abstinence only classes for 12 year olds as long as they’re secular like this study and don’t vilify or misinform about contraceptives like this one did not.

We have been through this here on JU several times. I think I remember that statistics showed that teenage pregnancy rates were higher in Christian than in liberal regions with Utah and the Mormons being the big (positive) exception.

Fair enough. 12-year olds should be tought not to have sex. And 16-year olds should be tought how to have sex safely.

Everything else, i.e. teaching 16-year olds that sex before marriage is bad is up to the parents and the parents alone.

The study mentioned that in the abstinence only class contraceptives were not vilified or lied about so I have to assume if they were asked the students were told the truth, I wouldn’t want to see that question ignored.

I would like to see a gradual increase in emphasis with some leeway granted the teacher to adjust that emphasis if they believe an individual student is about to or has already had sex. I think most parents would accept this.

Granted, its not a scientific experiment, not really even a quasi social experiment since there was no action to control for Z variables (potential other reasons for the outcomes)....

It would be interesting to compare a school that teaches abstinence only with a comparable school (demographically and economically) to one (or several combinations) that teach safe sex only.

The data is out there, it just has to be gathered and analyzed....but its a big project and in the end won't change ideology.

Personally I want my sons to wait for marriage.  I will do everything I can to ensure it.  But my oldest knows about condoms and VD.  If he decides to break our family values and rules and have sex, then I want him to protect himself and the girl he is with.  However, I won't be buying him condoms or acting like its ok...there will be consequences....the rule in my house is..."If you're old enough to have sex, then you're old enough to be out on your own."

We'll see how that works in the years to come.

In my case, I didn't want anyone (mainly strangers) teaching my child about sex.  I've seen too many teachers who I would consider to be immoral teaching sex-ed.  I wrote back along that there was an incidence in our HS where it was on videotape one teacher was strongly encouraging the kids to take flavored condems and lick them at a health fair.   I've also known good Christian teachers in public schools who are aghast at what they are required to teach the kids which basically amounts to encouraging them not educating them (like the teacher at the health fair). 

I would disagree with this for many reasons.  First of all the word 'Christian" nowadays can mean almost anything.  Most "Christians" are hardly distinquishable from the world.  They loosely take on the name and that's becoming more and more prevalent as time goes on.  I've seen firsthand many young people coming out of strong evangelical Christian homes going to the altar as virgins including two of my sons.  I think this would be a very hard thing to try and put a number on. 

I know the teaching of abstinence works because I had two out of three sons wait until marriage which is the same percentage as this study came up with (interesting).  If they choose, like you said to go outside our family values, they pay the consequences. While you can make choices you can't choose the consequences.  They choose for you.   So be it.  But like you said I wasn't about to make it easy for them to do so. 

I am with Leauki on this issue. Moral attributes regarding sex are the prerogative of the parents. But the whole issue is tricky with many pitfalls, and one cannot dismiss hormones and teenagers as a variable. Morals and parental guidance fly out the window as soon as two  young people fall in love anyway.

Sara Palin - I don't understsand how anybody can take her seriously - is the perfect example of a hypocritical attitude.

Those who preach high and mighty about morals and abstinence are often those that do the exact opposite when they're out of the public's eye, and I don't trust them on principle. The papers here wrote about her invovlement in the Tea party movement and her possible political ambitions for the year 2012. It's gonna stay interesting.. maybe if she would actually win, the thanksgiving turkey in 2013 won't get amnesty but have the special honour to get butchered by the president lol.

How so?  What is it that causes you to conclude that about Sarah Palin? I know Leauki's objections, but curious about yours.

She advocated sexual abstinence before marriage but her own family is anything like the standards she sets for others. Normally, I wouldn't hold it against her, but especially in issues concerning family morals it makes people look like hypocrites for me if they fail to live up to their own standards.

Generally, i don't think she is very smart. The interviews I remember from the election campaign were horrible in any case. That doesn't have anything to do with her being a republican though - I just don't find her very personable.

Is Sarah sleeping around?  How is she a hypocrite for something her daughter does/did?

I really really hope people don't judge me by what my teenager does or doesn't do.  I can believe and preach abstinence until the cows come home.  It doesn't make me a hypocrite if my son has sex.

Sarah P. has said publically her daughter knew better, was taught better.  But her daughter chose a different path...how does that make the mother a hypocrite?

If you were a politician and a prominent public figure with a strong moral and religious conviction that you would broadcast, then yeah.. it would make you look strange to me. Hypocrite is maybe a bit strong, but my oppinion certainly goes into that direction.

Even if her daughter behaved irresponsibly like she did and not Sarah herself - it reflects back on her. If your son had sex, it wouldn't make you a hypocrite. If he slept around and acted completely the opposite of what you tell people proper behaviour should be like from a high horse - that would be another stroy. I don't mean to say that your kid would ever behave like that though, it's just hypothetically. Sex alone isn't the deciding factor, for me.

Interesting view point.  If I may provide an anecdote (KFC, delete if unappropriate).

I was raised and am a practicing Catholic.  Which means Abortion is an absolute taboo (and I sincerely believe it too).  We had some neighbors who were friendly and some might say "redneckish", although there was no prejudice (a common misconception about American Rednecks).  He was a firefighter and she a stay at home mom with 3 kids (they later adopted several foster kids, but that is not relevant).  At the time, our first was born and their oldest was about 14, so there was really no interaction between our children and theirs, just the parents and us.

When the oldest daughter turned 16, she got pregnant.  I felt sorry for the parents, and thought the girl should be flayed to within an inch of her life!  How could she!  What was she thinking!  But most of all, why were the parents not wailing on her!  They should punish her to within an inch of her life!  The audacity of those rednecks to help out that child and let her live with them even after the baby was born!  They oughta...........

They oughta what?  It took some time, but finally I realized what a stupid hypocrite I was! I was totally against abortion, and yet what was I thinking?  I was thinking the exact opposite of what I believed.  And yet these "rednecks" were not thinking anything, they were living my faith (and theirs - they were presbeteryian), and showing through actions what true faith was.  I was ashamed of myself.

They were not hypocrites for continuing to love their daughter and not making her have an abortion, though she was just 16.  But I sure was! 

As I said, it took a while for me to realize MY HYPOCRISY, not theirs. 

While not a redneck, Sarah Palin is just like my neighbors.  We cannot control our children's lives forever, but we can control ours. And we can show them the honesty of our convictions in how we handle their problems as well.  Sarah did.  Yes, her daughter did not listen to her mother that well.  Chidlren do not always (as I have found out many times),  But when they make mistakes, you can shun them for it, or show them you love them anyway, and be the person you want them to be when they mature.

That is a good story. I think my parents would have done the same had I or my sisters become pregnant that young. Even though - my cousin, the daugher of an uncle in croatia, had a bit of a wild youth as well. She became pregnant when she was very young and the parents kicked her out and took the baby in. My mother finds nothing wrong with that at all, even though I think it was very cruel and wrong.

And I am sure that works in your case. I have no doubt that your moral values are the highest they can be, in fact I know they are.

But if you failed to teach your children your values (or teach them different values than you claim to have taught them) and at the same time run for office on the ticket that teaching those very values like you do is the way to go, you'd be a hypocrite.

You either practice what you preach or you fail to practice it. If you practice it and it doesn't work, you failed. In that case, don't preach.

There are thousands of mothers who have managed to teach their children proper behaviour and who didn't fail and who can lecture us on how it's done. Sarah Palin is not among them.

(Note that I wouldn't have a problem with this if the two actually would have got married after all. It's not the sex before marriage that I have a problem with but the claim that the two would get married when they really didn't.)

Of course it was cruel and wrong.

There is nothing morally wrong with getting pregnant. In fact it's a good thing and society (and obviously the family) must support it.

Both the mother and the child (or children) are entitled to help. THAT's the part Sarah Palin did right.

But then that decision is not Sarah Palin's.  As you state, we can teach, and they can then chose to follow or ignore.  Some do, some don't.  Of my mother's 7, some of us did (2 sisters and a brother) and some did not (a sister and a brother).  But I am not klingon so I do not hold the parent responsible for the actions of the child (or vice versa) once they are making decisions on their own.

if Sarah Palin had failed to live what she taught, she would be a hypocrite.  But for all the dirt that liberals have dug up on her, the worst thing they have said is she did not abort Tripp, her DS son.  That may make her stupid in some books, but not a hypocrite in any of them.

It was her decision to continue pretending to be the conservative mother who knew how to raise children well when she so obviously failed at that task.

I am solely talking about her actions and her reactions to her children's actions, not her children's actions.

I don't think that was the worst thing people came up with. It was merely the most outrageously stupid example for Palin's incompetence that people could come up with.

Her handicapped son is a reason to support her, because she did stand firm and remained loyal to her principles on that account. And they were good principles.

She was and is not pretending.  But I dont think she claimed to be perfect either (which would be required to damn her with labels of hypocrisy).  Clearly she is a conservative mother.  And has failed once out of how many times?  My mother is not a failure because 2 of her 7 did not live by her teachings.  And just because a professor flunks some of his students does not make him a failure as a professor either.

Each man and his own poison.  Clearly what you see as outrageous or stupid or incompetance, I see as a principaled woman who lives as she preaches. That does not make her a saint or perfect, but it does make her ethical and honest.  A rarity in politics in America today.

During the campaign they did pretend that the two would get married. That was clearly not true. Either the fiance is right and it was all a show or he lies in which case he was a bad choice for husband. Either way, that marriage was not to be and I am sure they knew.

They behaved exactly like someone without moral values would have behaved: Sarah Palin was confronted with a daughter who was unmarried and pregnant so she claimed that she and her boyfriend were planning to get married. That simply wasn't the truth.

You misunderstand. I said it was a stupid example, not that it was true. If you had read my next sentence that would have been clear:

"Her handicapped son is a reason to support her, because she did stand firm and remained loyal to her principles on that account."

I do consider the choice of example outrageously stupid. Keeping the child was the right thing to do. It didn't show stupidity, it showed values.

Pretend?  from what I hear, it was planned.  Then they get a he said-she said crap.  But regardless, the guy got cold feet.  is that something that has never happened?  So Sarah is responsbile for cold feet now too?  That was lame Leauki.  Sarah Palin is not a controlling machiavellian Princess.  Like all of us, she plans, and some do not work out.  And THAT makes her a hypocrite?  You are really stretching now.  I know you dont like her, but it seems you dont like her because she is not omnipotent, not for any other reason (and then I am sure that would be the excuse for the dislike).

I wish I had your knowlege of what everyone knows.

I read the next sentence, and I apologize for not getting the intent clearly.  But I did not assign the "stupid" to your belief, but that of the pundits you were referring to.  I did not take it as your opinion of their actions.

No, what makes her a hypocrite is that she told an untruth. The pregnant yet unmarried daughter was an inconvenience during the campaign so she decided to claim that they were going to get married.

But it turned out they weren't.

Do you really think she didn't talk it through with both of them, explaining to them the importance of "family values" for the campaign?

Yes, it makes her a hypocrite.

If daughter and boyfriend had really planned to get married they would have done it when she was pregnant, before the birth. The only reason to claim that the marriage was planned for the near future was because it wasn't.

Yes, she is.

From all I have seen from her and according to what the former boyfriend of her daughter says that's exactly what she is.

I just saw the picture of Sarah on her last speech where she wrote "Energy" "Tax" "Lift american spirit" on her palm as a crib. Didn't she make fun of Obama for using the teleprompter.. it is sort of emberassing that she needs to write down such keyelements of the republicans' political program. One would think that she should be able to give a speech about her political position without a crutch like that.

That is the crux of this entire conversation.  Those who like Sarah want to believe the best of her, that she did indeed mean what she said about their marriage.  Those who do not like her will believe the opposite.  Speculation is not truth.  We weren't in the room so we can't know for sure.

Personally, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and take her at her word.  It costs me nothing.  At least unless and until she proves herself a liar in matters that can be measured, witnessed, gauged.

Just because I am willing to believe her in matters of family, doesn't mean I think Sarah would be a good president.  I could list a lot of reasons why she wouldn't be, but the heart of the matter is, I don't think she can handle the job.  And Obama is a great example of how bad things can get when someone who can't do the job, HAS the job.

But we can allow ourselves to induct a bit (Sherlock Holmes would call it "deduct", but it's not).

There are many politicians I like who I am convinced are liars and hypocrites anyway. Ariel Sharon comes to mind. I don't have to dislike someone to spot a lie.

If the daughter and her boyfriend had intended to marry, they would have done so before the birth. There was no reason not to do it. Everything would have been fine if they had got married before the birth.

But during the campaign when Palin said that they intended to marry in the near future, I knew they wouldn't marry.

"The first rule of politics: never believe anything until it's been officially denied." (Yes, Minister)

I cannot imagine a world in which the daughter and her boyfriend (and Sarah Palin) actually wanted to wait with the wedding until after the campaign. It's inconceivable. It's just not something that would happen in a family that works together:

"No, mom, I have decided to wait until after your presidential campaign as the conservative vice presidential candidate for the more moderate McCain. I wouldn't want you to get into the race without an single mother daughter."

It doesn't make sense. The only likely explanation is that they didn't intend to marry and announcing that they would in the near future was damage control.

It might cost you a Republican candidate who has a chance to win.

If Sarah runs and wins the primaries, Obama will win re-election, even if he did badly. As I said before in another tread: liberals are not afraid of Sarah, just convinced that they and moderates won't vote for her.

Obama has been better than I thought he would be.