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Sex Education, Abstinence-Only Programs, and Guidelines (last updated January 12, 2002) A political debate continues over what teenagers should learn about sex and whether teaching abstinence as the only way of avoiding pregnancy or sexually-transmitted diseases is effective. The federal government has supported and funded abstinence-only programs for decades, and many states now require such programs. On the other hand, many, including Surgeon General David Satcher, have called for more comprehensive education programs, though the content of such programs is controversial. The federal government has funded abstinence programs since 1981, when the U.S. Office of Population Affairs began administering the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA). This legislation, enacted in 1978, initially called for ways of reaching adolescents before they become sexually active and to "promote self discipline and other prudent approaches to the problem of adolescent premarital sexual relations." In 1985, a federal judge found the program unconstitutional for promoting religious values; the case was appealed, reversed and remanded by the Supreme Court in 1988, and finally settled in 1993. Under the settlement, AFLA continues to fund sex education programs but must avoid religious references and be medically accurate. In recent years, the federal government has increasingly supported state and local programs that promote abstinence. In 1996, as part of the welfare reform passed that year, the federal government created an entitlement program that provides $50 million in matching funds a year for five years to states. Programs that receiving such funding must follow specific guidelines, including teaching that "sexual activity outside of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects." The Bush administration has increased funding for abstinence-only programs and officials have said that their goal is to increase funding to $135 million a year, which would match current spending for family planning. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in a June 2001 press briefing that Bush believes that sex education is a matter for local control and that Bush "continues to believe that abstinence and abstinence education is the most effective way to prevent AIDS, to prevent unwanted pregnancy." Sharing that view, many states now emphasize abstinence in mandated programs about the unintended consequences of teenage sexual activity, specifically sexually transmitted diseases. According to a January 2002 report by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 39 states have established some requirements for sex education, with 34 requiring that abstinence be taught in schools and only 19 requiring that contraception be taught. Only five states specifically address abortion, and four of them (Connecticut, Louisiana, Michigan and South Carolina) only to prohibit any discussion with sex education; only Vermont requires that abortion be discussed. Even as state governments and the federal government increasingly emphasize abstinence programs, many critics have said that such programs have limited effectiveness and do not reflect the general public's attitudes towards sex education. Some, such as the Sexuality and Education Information Council of the United States (SIECUS), have developed guidelines as to what should be taught. The 1996 edition of SIECUS's guidelines recognize that abstinence is the only guaranteed way to avoid unintended consequences but recommends educating on contraception and other forms of sexual behavior, such as masturbation. While most of the guidelines deals with uncontroversial subjects such as how families operate and the importance of communication, more controversial aspects cover masturbation, abortion, and homosexuality. For example, the SIECUS guidelines recommends that children in early elementary school, ages 5 through 8, learn:
Teenage Sexuality: Activity (last updated January 11, 2002) About half of all never-married teenagers aged 15-19 years old had had sexual intercourse at least once in 1995. According to surveys, the percentage of male teenagers who are sexually experienced has fluctuated around 70 percent, whereas the percentage of female teenagers who are sexually experienced has risen from about 30 percent in 1971 to about 50 percent in the 1990s.    Teenage Sexuality: Consequences (teen births, abortions, STDs) (last updated January 11, 2002) In general, the consequences of teenagers having sex have declined in recent years. Births to teenage mothers has gone down from 6.3 such births for every 100 live births in 1970 to 4.4 in 1999, abortion ratios for teenaged females have fallen by about half since the 1980s, and the rates of sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea have fallen as well. The reasons for these changes are debatable. Some point to the increased use of contraceptives, some to the promotion of abstinence in sex-education programs, and some to changing social conditions such as increased opportunities for those who would otherwise become parents earlier.     Homosexuality: Incidence (last updated January 13, 2002) There is no formal measure of the prevalence of homosexuality, especially because the definition is open to some interpretation. Homosexuality can be viewed as a matter of behavior, attraction, or identity, and can vary depending on whether one is exclusively or predominantly "homosexual" in such ways. In general, the literature, as reviewed by the Kinsey Institute, ranges widely. Studies show incidence rates from 1 to 15 percent, with slightly higher incidence rates for homosexual men than for homosexual women. Kinsey's studies from 1948 and 1953 showed that 37 percent of males and 13 percent of females had at least some overt homosexual experience to orgasm, and that 8-10 percent of males and 2-6 percent of females had been more or less exclusively homosexual after the onset of adolescence. This data is weighted towards younger adults, particularly college-educated, and the sample set included institutionalized men, so subsequent reviews have eliminated bias to show lower incidence rates. Sources: Kinsey Institute, Prevalence of Homosexuality: Brief summary of U.S. Studies (Compiled in June 1999, available on-line here. |
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