belowthewaist.org » Abstinence

The Puzzle of David Obey

Dino Corvino — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:39:55 +0000

Dr. Green is an Honorable Man

Lon Newman — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:24:13 +0000

Patrick McIlheran, a conservative columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, startled me with a ‘quick hit’ that was printed in the Easter Sunday edition. The columnist trumpets a letter to the Washington Post by Harvard School of Public Health HIV/Aids researcher, Edward Green, where, according to McIlheran, Green said: “The pope is correct.” Katherine Kersten, blogging for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune also is amplifying Green’s assertion that current evidence on condom use in Africa supports the Pope’s position. My thoughts are: “Get ready, there’s a whole lot more where that came from and there will be a lot more for a long time.”

As Pope Benedict boarded a plane to Yaounde, he said: “”You can’t resolve it (Africa’s HIV/Aids Epidemic) with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

Dr. Green’s research and his public presentations, by contrast, state that condoms are seldom used consistently and correctly in general populations and for many reasons, most of which are unknown, condom distribution programs in those areas of Africa have failed to show positive results on a population basis. He explains that condoms are 80-90% effective at HIV transmission prevention when used consistently and correctly by individuals.

In fact, even in the Washington Post letter that is generating the public attention, Green says: “Don’t misunderstand me; I am not anti-condom. All people should have full access to condoms, and condoms should always be a backup strategy for those who will not or cannot remain in a mutually faithful relationship.”

Although Dr. Green’s research findings overlap with Pope Benedicts moral position that reducing multiple concurrent partners and promotion of fidelity and abstinence have been successful strategies for many people, we cannot ignore the distinction between the proven effectiveness of consistent and correct use of condoms by individuals at risk and our inability to show condom distribution program effectiveness in certain parts of Africa on a population research basis.

Dr. Green supports universal access to condoms and consistent and correct use by individuals at risk of sexually transmitted disease infection. Pope Benedict XVI does not.

It is pointless to speculate on Dr. Green’s motivations for writing a letter to the Washington Post that minimizes the distinctions between the Vatican’s point-of-view and his own as a Harvard School of Public Health HIV/Aids researcher. I am no Harvard epidemiologist, but I know that confusion resulting from Dr. Green’s letter will be used to oppose public health policies and programs that Dr. Green supports. I know that opposition puts the lives and health of millions in Africa and across the world at risk.

Virginity Pledges Do Not Work, Yet Another Study Confirms

Dino Corvino — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:14:22 +0000

(from the Guttmacher Institute)

Teens who take “virginity pledges” are just as likely to have sex as those who do not, and they are less likely to use condoms or other forms of contraception when they become sexually active, according to an analysis in the January 2009 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Pediatrics. Because virginity pledge programs do not reduce the number of young people becoming sexually active, the number of pledgers they enlist should not be used to measure the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education programs, the study concludes.

The findings could have an impact on the current debate over federal support for abstinence-only-until-marriage education and the Obama administration’s support for comprehensive sex education. A wealth of evidence—including findings published in 2007 from a congressionally mandated study, conducted over nine years at a cost of almost $8 million—has demonstrated that abstinence-only programs have no beneficial effect on young people’s sexual behavior. Nevertheless, the U.S. government allotted $176 million for FY 2008 to support programs that exclusively promote abstinence-only outside of marriage, including virginity-pledge programs.

For this new analysis, Janet E. Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins University used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a nationally representative sample of middle and high school students who were interviewed in 1995, 1996 and 2001. Unlike previous evaluations of virginity pledges, this study matched a group of teens who had pledged to remain abstinent until marriage with adolescents who had not taken such a pledge but who had comparable characteristics, such as similar views about premarital sex and contraceptive use.

The study found that after five years, more than half of both pledgers and nonpledgers had engaged in sexual activity, and the two groups had similar rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Pledgers, however, were less likely to use contraceptives or to use them consistently. For example, 34% of nonpledgers who had had sex said they had always used condoms during the past year, compared with 24% of pledgers. In addition, 82% of pledgers denied having taken a pledge.

These findings underscore the need for young people, particularly virginity pledgers, to receive information about condoms and other forms of contraception, Dr. Rosenbaum concludes. She also comments that adolescents who have taken virginity pledges may be less likely than others to use contraceptives because abstinence-only programs foster negative attitudes about birth control. The importance of contraceptive use was highlighted in an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute that found that 86% of the decline in teen pregnancy between 1995 and 2002 was due to teens’ increasing, and increasingly effective, use of contraceptives; only 14% was the result of teens’ delaying sex.

Dr. Rosenbaum’s findings build on past research showing that while virginity pledges may help some teens to delay sexual activity, most young people who take them break their pledge, and pledge breakers are less likely to use condoms, are less likely to get tested for STIs and may have STIs for longer periods of time than nonpledgers.
For more information:

Click here for Guttmacher data on teen sexual and reproductive health.

Click here for information on Congressional hearings on abstinence-only programs.

Click here for information on strategies that work.

Click here for information on the origins of and past findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

Right Conscience – Conscience Rights

Lon Newman — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:26:12 +0000

As the fable goes, an eagle is brought to earth by an arrow fletched with his own feathers.

Listening to the spokesperson for Pro-Life Wisconsin as he defended the new ‘right of conscience’ regulations on Wisconsin Public Radio last week reminded me of the wisdom of the tale.

For 30 years, regulations and federal laws have struck a delicate balance between the rights of patients to receive health care and the rights of health care providers. The new regulations, issued by Health and Human Services Secretary Leavitt, expand the rights of health care providers so extensively that the rights of the patient to receive care are obliterated. The new regulations give the right to refuse to provide health care to all virtually all employees for any health care service they might ‘morally object to.’

Matt Sande, speaking on behalf of Pro-Life Wisconsin, defended the broadest possible right to refuse saying: “These rights aren’t qualified in any way. That’s as it should be. We just have to work around it. We may not understand or agree with an individual’s objection, but we must protect and defend them. . . If we pick and choose which rights we protect, then we won’t have rights for anyone.”

Would this right to refuse apply to physicians who provide abortion services in South Dakota who have been required by state law to inform their patients that terminating a pregnancy is ending a separate, unique human life and that consequences may include depression and suicide? These physicians certainly have moral objections to the content of that message. Health and Human Services Secretary Leavitt has said that, where state laws and the rights of conscience regulations are in conflict, the federal government will help “bring the state into compliance.”

Would volunteers at federally funded abstinence-only “crisis pregnancy centers” have federal civil rights protection for refusing to give out inaccurate and incomplete information [Waxman Report] about the effectiveness of condoms to prevent pregnancy and HIV transmission? As he described patients who ‘may have to go somewhere else,” Mr. Sande said; “One person’s convenience should not trump another person’s right of conscience.”

The moral of the fable is that we are often the source of our own destruction.

The first weakness of the ‘rights of conscience’ regulation expansion is an assumption that only anti-abortion and anti-family planning advocates have moral convictions. The probability that health care employees will refuse to comply with anti-choice or anti-contraception requirements has been overlooked.

The second weakness is a faith-based denial that absolute rights do not exist on this earth. Individual rights require constant, vigilant, rational and empathic balancing. Whether it is the right of a patient to informed consent or the right of the state to protect a fetus, purity is an impossible standard.

The Obama administration must immediately refuse to enforce these regulations and Congress must immediately begin the process to rescind them. In this case, ideologues have given their enemies the means of their own destruction and the regulations must be brought to earth.

MAJOR REVIEW FINDS NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT FUNDING OF RIGID ABSTINENCE-ONLY PROGRAMS

Dino Corvino — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:43:15 +0000

[Editors Note: From time to time we receive email updates from organiztions. This one comes to us from the Guttmacher Institute. We thought it was significant in scope, and wanted to pass it along in its entirety.]

Special Journal Issue Examines Broad Range of Problems
Associated with Abstinence-Only Education

Most abstinence-only programs of the type that have received $1.5 billion in federal funding do not help teens delay initiation of sex, and there is no scientific evidence to warrant their widespread use, according to a major new review of sexuality education program evaluations by Douglas B. Kirby. In contrast, many comprehensive sex education programs, which emphasize both abstinence and the use of protection for those who do have sex, were found to have a positive impact and should be replicated more widely. The study concludes that a comprehensive approach to sex education is effective and does not send a confusing message to young people.

The new review is part of a series of articles that identify major flaws in abstinence-only education, including problems with accuracy, effectiveness and ethics, all published in a special edition of the journal Sexuality Research and Social Policy, guest edited by John S. Santelli and Leslie M. Kantor, both with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

“These articles present the serious ethical and scientific reservations many experts have about policies mandating abstinence as the sole choice for adolescents and about the withholding of potentially life-saving information from teenagers that occurs in such programs,” says John S. Santelli, a Guttmacher Institute senior fellow. “The articles make clear that abstinence-only programs are based on ideology and politics—and go against the consensus of public health science.”

Also in the special issue of Sexuality Research and Social Policy:

Key critiques of abstinence-only programs: Promotion of abstinence until marriage is directly at odds with long-term demographic trends, including earlier age at first sex and later age at first marriage, according to “Abstinence-Only Policies and Programs: An Overview,” by Kantor and colleagues. Abstinence-only programs also coincided with increasing restrictions on teachers’ ability to teach and with fewer young people receiving comprehensive sexuality education.
Abstinence-only programs violate key human rights principles: Abstinence-only programs’ silence or misinformation on condom effectiveness violates young people’s right to information and to the means with which to protect their health, according to “Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs and Their Impact on Adolescent Human Rights,” by Alice M. Miller and Rebecca A. Schleifer. The authors examine both Texas and Uganda in their demonstration of the ways that human rights approaches can help to illustrate limitations on programs that restrict access to information.
What motivated states to reject abstinence-only funding: States that refused to accept federal funding under the rigid Title V abstinence-only program often had concerns about its efficacy and accuracy, as well as progressive governments and strong advocates for comprehensive sexuality education, according to “State Refusal of Federal Funding for Abstinence-Only Programs,” by Marissa Raymond and colleagues. The authors suggest that policy change can be achieved by building coalitions supporting comprehensive sexuality education and challenging the medical accuracy and efficacy of abstinence-only education.
Condom misinformation in abstinence-only curricula: Commonly used abstinence-only curricula do not provide complete, current or accurate medical knowledge about the effectiveness of condoms. These curricula explicitly and implicitly convey the message that condoms do not provide protection against HIV, according to “The Accuracy of Condom Information in Three Selected Abstinence-Only Education Curricula,” by Alison Jeanne Lin and John S. Santelli.

Dedicated to the memory of Cynthia Dailard

The editors have dedicated this special issue to the memory of Cynthia Dailard, who tirelessly championed adolescent health and reproductive rights, and was a leading voice in the policy community against abstinence-only programs as a senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute from 1998 until her death in 2006.

Related commentary: Medical accuracy in abstinence-only education

In response to the increasing injection of ideology into sexuality education, many states have recently implemented requirements for scientific and medical accuracy in sexuality education and HIV prevention programs. Medical accuracy is based on a scientific consensus process, which considers the weight of scientific evidence, incorporates scientific theory, is built upon peer review and is recognized by mainstream scientific and health organizations as objective and complete, according to “Medical Accuracy in Sexuality Education: Ideology and the Scientific Process,” by John Santelli, published in the American Journal of Public Health.

SIECUS Releases Report on Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs in Kentucky

Dino Corvino — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:42:47 +0000

Millions of Dollars to Failed Programs and Crisis Pregnancy Centers

New York, NY – Today, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) released a special report on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in Kentucky. The report, which compiles data on the major federal funding sources of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs as well as vital health statistics and outcomes in the state, paints a picture of a state that uses some of the worst, fear-based abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula and lags behind national averages on many important adolescent indicators related to teen pregnancy and STDs.

Kentucky

received $3,070,315 in abstinence-only-until-marriage funding in Fiscal Year 2007, including Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage funding. The Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage program in Kentucky disbursed $817,297 in funding to 16 local health departments, a majority of which use fear- and shame- based curricula, and crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs).

“The amount of money that is flowing into Kentucky is staggering,” said SIECUS Vice President for Public Policy, William Smith, “especially when you look at the programs it is going to that are based on fear, shame, gender stereotypes, and misinformation, as well as CPCs, which are very thinly veiled religious organizations. It is clear that these funds are not about improving the health of young people in Kentucky but rather in supporting a certain ideological enterprise at the taxpayer’s expense.”

In 2007, among those high school students who reported being currently sexually active, 53 percent of females and 67 percent of males in Kentucky reported having used condoms the last time they had sexual intercourse compared to 55 percent of females and 69 percent of males nationwide. While this number is near the national average, Kentucky lags in other areas–the teen birth rate nationwide is 41.1 per 1,000 young women ages 15-19 while in Kentucky the rate is 49.2 per 1,000 young women ages 15-19, a full 19 percent higher than the national average.

The situation in Kentucky is not improving: in a single year between 2005 and 2006, the teen birth rate rose 6.6 percent while the nationwide teen birth rate rose 3 percent in the same year. And, while the overall prevalence of HIV is low compared to other states, it is important to note where new infections are occurring. African Americans make up only seven percent of the total Kentucky population but nearly 34 percent of new HIV cases in the state.

“Numbers don’t lie,” continued Smith. “It is time for Kentucky to join many other states in refusing this failed experiment of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. As long as funds are going to these programs that place ideology over what the evidence says works, young people and other underserved groups in Kentucky are going to continue to suffer.”

For other information or with any questions, contact Patrick Malone at pmalone@siecus.org.

See Full Report Here

SIECUS Report (Kentucky)

U.S. Abstinence-Only Policy Panel Discussion

Dino Corvino — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:45:49 +0000

Silencing Sex Ed: The Harm of at Home and Abroad

Legal Momentum, the nation’s oldest legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the rights of women, and our colleagues at Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) and Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), present a panel discussion about the harms of abstinence-only programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on April 23, from 4:30-6:00 pm in TITU in Memorial Union and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point on April 24, from 5:30-7:30 pm in the Founders Room. The program will expose how the federal government uses abstinence-only funding to fuel programs full of misinformation, sexist stereotypes and extreme right-wing ideology that aim to roll back sexual and reproductive rights. We will highlight the attack on women’s rights and sexuality both in the US and as exported via conditions on US funding, with particular attention given to the human rights implications of abstinence-only policies.

Numerous studies provide conclusive evidence that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, at home and abroad, do not lead to positive changes in teen sexual behavior, are particularly harmful to women and girls because they promote dangerous and outdated stereotypes, potentially exacerbate the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, and increase the risk of unplanned pregnancy for teens. These times demand honest and comprehensive information about the risks of sexual activity — and how to responsibly handle those risks.

We are targeting college students and young activists to incite them to become politically active to protect comprehensive sex education. Our outreach to college campuses will allow the coalition team to provide information directly and alert students of the national organizations’ campaigns to advance reproductive rights. We will also encourage and support the student groups’ efforts to pursue their own local and grass-roots follow-up activities to oppose abstinence-only programs and other related restrictions on reproductive rights (such as researching their local sexuality education policies, becoming involved in efforts to require truth in education, exposing crisis pregnancy centers that target local women and other initiatives).

WHAT: Madison – Panel presentation and Q&A on Harm of Abstinence-only Programs in U.S. and Abroad

WHO: Julie F. Kay, Senior Staff Attorney
Sexuality and Family Rights Program, Legal Momentum
Speaking on: Abstinence-Only Programs: Harmful to Women and Girls

Jamila Taylor, Legislative and Policy Analyst
Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)
Speaking on: Exporting the U.S. Abstinence-Only Agenda

Kate Morrison, State Policy Coordinator
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS)
Speaking on: Challenges and Successes in Opposing Abstinence-Only

WHEN &    WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2008, 4:30-6:00 PM
WHERE:    TITU in Memorial Union
Please contact Erica L Van Steen at ccse_wi@yahoo.com for more info.
WHAT:    Stevens Point – Panel presentation and Q&A on Harm of Abstinence-only Programs in U.S. and Abroad

WHO: Julie F. Kay, Senior Staff Attorney
Sexuality and Family Rights Program, Legal Momentum
Speaking on: Abstinence-Only Programs: Harmful to Women and Girls

Jamila Taylor, Legislative and Policy Analyst
Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)
Speaking on: Exporting the U.S. Abstinence-Only Agenda

Jen Heitel Yakush, Senior Public Policy Associate
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS)
Speaking on: Challenges and Successes in Opposing Abstinence-Only

WHEN & THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2008, 5:30-7:30 PM
WHERE: Founders Room in Old Main
Please RSVP to womenres@uwsp.edu by April 22.

What happens when abstinent people change their minds?

Below The Waist — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 21:25:25 +0000

This article from the Washington Post takes a look at STI rates among teens who take virginity pledges and this article from the Telegraph looks at what happens to pregnancy rates.