'Abstinence Only' Sex Ed Ineffective

"There have been studies that have been done over the last few years at least that have made it quite clear that abstinence-only education is not only a waste of money, but it is a danger to young adults as well."

"This is a social agenda masquerading as teen pregnancy prevention," says Martha Kempner, vice president for information and communications at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. "This administration has allowed ideology to trump science at every possible opportunity.

"I hope that Congress will look at this and see that there is a lot of money that is not working, and say 'hey, we need that money elsewhere.'"

On the other side of the argument, proponents of abstinence-only programs say the results of the study only show that more effort must be poured into the programs to reap true dividends.

"The Mathematica report does not support a conclusion that abstinence-only education programs should no longer be funded," said Dr. Gary Rose, president and CEO of the Medical Institute, in a statement released Friday. "To the contrary, the report specifically indicates that programs should continue with changes where necessary to make them more effective, particularly promoting support for abstinence among peer networks as an important feature."

"Many of the programs were in a stage of early development when the evaluation occurred," wrote Robert Rector, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, in a critique of the report. He added that the fact that participants in the programs were quite young, and follow-up education was lacking could have contributed to the failure.

"The main lesson that should be taken from this study is that interventions at a very early age require significant follow-up, or they'll be less likely to alter teen risk behaviors," he wrote.

Some critics have also maintained that the lack of high school programs in the study shows that the study is not representative of the overall impact of this funding. Indeed, two of the programs focused on upper elementary school students and the other two, on middle school students. None of the four included a high school component.