Running head: abstinence-only education

Abstinence-Only Education: Policy & Consequences

Kimberly Jovanovski
Wayne State University
SW 3710 Section 002

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Abstract

This paper will be analyzing the policies around abstinence-only education for teens. First, I
will provide a description of the policies in place for abstinence-only education, while looking at
the consequences of these policies and the demographics of the population that is affected by
these policies. Then I will look at the historical aspect of this policy, when it was first identified,
and see if it is identified today the same way it was identified back then, or if the policies are
different. Based on this, I will see what policies were put in place back then and see how these
policies have changed over time. I will discuss who receives the services and how it impacts
them, and how social stigma and societal prejudices affect policy solutions. I will then discuss
my own personal beliefs on the problem and the causes of the problem, and then end the paper
by tying it back to social work values and ethics.

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Background Information on Policies and Demographics

There are a lot of policies in place in terms of adolescent sexual education. Most
abstinence education policies were created under the Adolescent Family Life Act of 1981 (also
known as the Chastity Act or AFLA), which provides funding for a multitude of policies that
promoted abstinence education, a conservative version of family planning. A few examples of
the policies currently in place in various states include Postponing Sexual Involvement (PSI) in
Atlanta, Georgia; Sex Respect in Golf, Illinois; Teen-Aid in Spokane, Washington; and Values
and Choices in Minneapolis, Minnesota. These programs encourage adolescents to abstain from
sexual intercourse until they are married. The policies affect the population of adolescents, ages
13 to 19 years, in middle and high school, of all different cultural backgrounds. The policies
were put in place to try and lessen the alarmingly high teen pregnancy rates in America.
According to Hopper & Marx (2005),
The 1997 pregnancy rate among female adolescents in the United States was 93.3
pregnancies per 1,000; the teenage birthrate for the same year was 52.3 per 1,000. In
comparison, the Netherlands, with the lowest rate in Europe, had a teen pregnancy rate of
12.2 per 1,000 and a teenage birth rate of 8.2 per 1,000 (p. 281).
In terms of what is being taught, Guttmacher Institute says, as of October 1st, 2014,
37 states require that information on abstinence be provided, 25 of which require
abstinence be stressed, and 12 require that abstinence be covered. 19 states require
instruction on the importance of engaging in sexual activity only within marriage be
provided (p. 2).

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How did abstinence-only education come about, and how did it become the norm? Before we can
look at abstinence-only education from todays standpoint, we have to start back in colonial
times and see how sex outside of marriage was treated.
Historical Treatment, Similarities and Differences
Historically speaking, sex outside of wedlock was very much frowned upon in America.
According to Day & Schiele (2013), Women who bore children outside of marriage could be
taken to court and sentenced to public whipping, branding, and fines, and that Adultery was
the worst crime a woman could commit, for it was an offense against mens property rights (p.
133). There was also the fact that Puritans placed an emphasis on female control and regulation
of female behavior. So in a way, sexism and abstinence education kind of go hand in hand, which
we can see in the laws and policies throughout history, as well as societal norms. According to
the Friedman (1998), Sex education first made an appearance in 1913when Chicago public
schools instituted a lecture series for girls and, separately, boys, on physiology, moral hygiene,
and vernacular disease (p. 773). It was not until the mid-1960s that people felt the need to
reform sexual education for teenagers, which was met with backlash by conservatives. Then, in
the 1980s, AFLA was passed. In todays society, we can still see a lot of the stigma and shame
around adolescent sexual activity. One major difference is the reasons sex outside of marriage
was so taboo. In the past, women were marrying and having children very young, so age was not
the main issue. It was mostly a form of social control, of keeping women in their place, which
was in the home and having children and being subservient to their husbands. They were
considered property of their husbands, so if they did not have a husband and had a child, not only
were they a sinner, but they also did not have an owner so to speak, which did not make them
people. In modern times, the taboo seems to have moved from ownership mostly to the problem

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with age, as well as concern for the health of teenagers. We now know that having children
young can not only cause problems for the mother, but also for the child. The similarities
between the Puritan days of early America and todays modern society is the idea of religion, as
well as education. Koch (1998) says that declining marriage rates alarm other conservatives.
They see premarital and extramarital sex, as well as the increasing acceptance of out-of-wed-lock
childbirth by both teens and adults, as major threats to the institution of marriage (p. 586). Back
in the Puritan days, we did not know as much as we do now about sexual health, but the
similarity is the lack of education. Even with all the knowledge we have now on various aspects
of sexual health, we still fail to give accurate information to teens. Alford (2007) says:
A 2004 investigation by the minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee
reviewed 13 commonly used abstinence-only curricula taught to millions of school-age
youth. The study concluded that two of the curricula were accurate but that 11 others,
used by 69 organizations in 25 states, blurred religion and science, and contained
unproven claims and subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding the
effectiveness of contraceptives, gender traits, and when life begins (p. 1).
Although there are some improvements of the treatment of premarital and adolescent sex and
sexual health, there is still a lot of stigma and shame around it, which makes it harder for
adolescents get accurate information and access to contraceptives.
Services in Place and Changes over Time
The Adolescent Family Life Act is still in place today and continues to fund abstinence
only education curriculums. Koch (1998) says in regards to AFLA that, Partly to win liberals
support, the original bill stipulated that two-thirds of AFLA funds would be used to support
already-pregnant teens and one-third to promote abstinence. That ratio was reversed in 1997 and

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98 (p. 585). There was also Title X of the Public Health Service Act, signed into law by
President Richard M. Nixon, created a comprehensive family planning program for poor women
through federally subsidized clinics (Koch, 1998). It was met with considerable backlash by
conservatives, since health clinics typically allow access to contraceptives and abortions. It was
also met with backlash due to the fact that it was not providing any real family planning help.
Feldt says any birth control counseling done in the clinics includes encouraging abstinence
and encouraging young people to talk to their parents (as cited in Koch, 1998, p. 588-589). With
all these bills in place, one would assume that a majority of the American population would want
their teens learning about abstinence, but the numbers speak differently. According to DeJoy &
Perrin (2003),
93% of Americans support the teaching of sexuality in schools; 92% believe that such
education should tell young people who are sexually active to use contraception; and
83% of adults believe that teenagers should receive information about protecting
themselves from pregnancy and STDs even if they are not yet sexually active (p. 449).
In terms of comprehensive sex education, with the Internet, most teens have easier access to
comprehensive education. While there are resources on the Internet that allow teens to get
scientifically accurate information, like the Planned Parenthood website, there are also a lot of
harmful resources. The harmful sources that come to mind are pornography. Pornography can be
harmful in the sense that it is not realistic, and teens could easily interpret it the wrong way.
Research has found that watching degrading porn increases users dominating and harassing
behavior towards women (Fight the New Drug, 2014). The good resources seem to weigh out the
bad, though, with sites like Fight The New Drug, which gives facts and information on porn and
how it affects people negatively, as well as TheBedSider, Scarleteen, and YouTube with peer

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educators like Laci Green talking about important issues surrounding teen sexuality and the
LGBTQ community.
Policy Impact on the Population
Problematic policies like abstinence-only education causes more harm than good. It has
also been proven time after time that abstinence-only education is not effective at curbing
STD/STI rates, pregnancy rates, or premarital sex. Baur & Crooks (2011) say that A recent
comprehensive scientifically sound studies of abstinence-only programs revealed that children
exposed to this form of sex education were no more likely to abstain from sex than those in a
control group not exposed to abstinence-only instruction (p. 370). There have been abstinenceonly education success stories, but Koch (1998) says the problem with these studies is that
none of the abstinence studies have been conducted scientifically (p. 583). When trying to find
sources that supported abstinence-only education, not only were there little to no sources, and
based on the quote above, the sources that were available were not reliable. Study after study that
has come out and studies discussed in this paper all relayed that abstinence-only education was
not helping or preventing teens from having sex or unwanted teen pregnancies. The policies
mean well in their own right, they are attempting to solve a societal problem, as well as some
health hazards, but in a way that his harmful for adolescents. McIlhaney said The best that
safer sex approaches can offer is some risk reduction. Abstinence, on the other hand, offers risk
elimination. When the risks of pregnancy and disease are so greathow can we advocate for
anything less? (as cited in Koch, 1998, p. 593). People who are for abstinence-only education
want to combat the same things that comprehensive sexual education seeks to prevent, like
pregnancy and STIs, but with abstinence. It is a very noble cause, but with scientific studies

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proving again and again that these tactics do not work, on adolescents or adults, based on the fact
that 95% of Americans have had premarital sex (Alford, 2007).
Social Stigma, Discrimination, and Societal Prejudices
Due to these policies on sexual education, there is a lot of stigma and shame surrounding
teen sexuality, mostly female teen sexuality. We praise male teens when they have multiple
sexual partners, shame them if they are virgins, and we shame female teens for having multiple
sexual partners, calling them sluts and whores. This sexism also plays out in cases of teen
pregnancy. Our society looks down on teen moms, just like how the Puritans looked down on
single mothers. Teen moms are more likely to have physical complications with their pregnancy,
higher infant mortality rates, and they are more susceptible to STIs and poverty. Teen and single
mothers are more likely to be poor and rely on social services. According to Appleby et al.
(2001), If she is divorced, a teen mother, or over age sixty-five, she is likely to be living in
poverty (p. 103). This stems from the idea of what Appleby et al. call the Feminization of
Poverty, which says, that women are poor because of the effect of their traditional gender
roles on their ability to accumulate economic resources (p. 103). There is also the problem of
LGBTQ representation in sexual education, in the sense that there is none of it, or incorrect
information presented about the LGBTQ population. One falsehood taught in abstinence only
education is that Half of gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for HIV
(Alford, 2007, p. 1). With the education provided being abstinence-only, there is a focus on
heterosexual intercourse, not homosexual intercourse. This, coupled with little to no information
on protection from STDs or STIs, leaves homosexual teens defenseless in terms of safe sex. With
no knowledge on how to protect themselves or where to get these tools, they run a higher risk of
contracting STDs. Zenilman found that Recent studies of adolescents in Texas - a state that has

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aggressively promoted an abstinence-only approach in its schools, pronouncements, and policies

reveal thatSTI rates among adolescents are well above national averages (as cited in Baur
& Crooks, 2011, p. 370). There is also the problem of rape victims. Since they had their
virginity forcibly taken from them, the abstinence-only education system excludes them, and
often makes them feel more ashamed of what happened to them. In addition, American society
seems to see marriage as the goal for everyone. Sometimes people do not wish to get married. So
are they stuck having premarital intercourse for the rest of their lives? With adolescents being
taught that sexual activity comes with a heavy price to pay if you do not do it strictly for
procreative purposes, they feel guilt and shame for having sexual urges. This, along with myths
surrounding sex (such as the popping the cherry myth) ensure that the first time teens have
premarital sex, it is uninformed, guilt-ridden, and unenjoyable for the people involved.
Personal Beliefs
Comprehensive sex education for American teenagers has been something I have become
very passionate about. My personal experience with sexual education was alright at best. It
started in 5th grade, around when I was 11. It was mostly about puberty, so they covered things
like menstruation and nocturnal emissions. They briefly mentioned that semen and eggs make
babies, but nobody understood how that happened. I remember asking one of my classmates how
semen made its way into the uterus, and she had no idea. I thought sex was two people lying
next to each other, the man would ejaculate, and it would somehow get into the womans vagina.
We could write anonymous questions on notecards for the instructor to answer, and I asked,
How does semen get into the uterus? I am fairly certain that if I had not asked that question,
they would not have addressed it. In middle school, I remember them talking about anatomy,
condoms as birth control (but no other forms of birth control), but what sticks out in my mind is

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the section on just saying no. We were to figure out ways to turn down sex, alcohol, cigarettes,
or drugs. One of my male classmates crumpled up tissues and put them in his shirt, using a
falsetto voice to turn down sex from another male classmate. In high school, health class was a
half a semester long and was not mandatory if you took two years of a foreign language. Having
not taken enough foreign language courses, I reluctantly signed up so I could graduate from high
school. For 49 minutes every day, I would sit down in my assigned seat and learn about various
subjects that I had no interest in. We talked about diet and diet habits, we watched the movie
Super-Size Me and I left class craving Big Macs and chicken nuggets. We talked about alcohol,
cigarettes and drugs, their effects, and how to turn them down. I would doodle in the margins of
my notes, text my friends, pop my gum, anything to make the time in the class go by faster. We
talked about sexually transmitted diseases, but unlike some programs, we did not see any shock
pictures. We just discussed them, their symptoms, and how to prevent them. We talked about
methods of birth control, but my teacher emphasized male condoms as the best form of birth
control. I knew absolutely nothing about oral contraceptives and how they worked and where
you could get them. I did not know females had a clitoris until after high school. I was not told
what a healthy relationship was, except that if your partner hits you, it is not okay. I had to learn
a lot of the essentials of sex education I know now on the Internet. I had to learn the hard way
what an unhealthy relationship looked like. As a social worker, I want to make sure teens have
access to the resources to educate themselves properly on sexual health. I want them to feel safe
and comfortable talking with adults about sex, contraceptives, sexually transmitted
infections/diseases, and healthy romantic relationships. If I learned anything while I was a
teenager, it was that if someone told me not to do something, I would want to go out and do it.
Instead of lying to teenagers and hiding the tools they need to protect themselves, we need to

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give them access to contraceptives, access to a better education, and help them grow up and
make the best choices for their personal situations.
Social Work Values and Ethics
Although organized religion has been a good provider of social services, Hopper & Marx
(2005) say that:
recent federal promotion of faith-based initiatives threatens the social work
profession. That is, areliance on faith-based social policy and services represents a step
back in time to the colonial systema system that viewed immorality as a primary cause
of poverty (p. 281).
Religion can be helpful in terms of the services they provide, but how they provide it can cause a
great deal of problems. Religions may have biases against certain populations and may refuse
them care. In terms of sexuality, Christianity believes that sex before marriage is a sin, which
makes them more likely to refuse comprehensive sex education. One reoccurring problem of all
the sources is that they claim abstinence-only education is a violation of our right to free-speech.
Alford (2007) says,
Federally funded programs restrict young peoples access to much-needed health
information and limit their education to the approved messages in the governments
definition of abstinence-only education. As a result, recipients offunds as well as the
teachers who providehealth education to their students operate under a gag order that
censors the communication of vital sexual health information (p. 3).
This, along with the fact that many Americans do not even support abstinence-only education for
their teens, are direct hindrances to the social workers pursuit of social and economic justice. As
social workers, we want our clients to be safe, as well as informed about the resources in place to

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assist them. Social justice is a very big issue with this, because of the sexism present in the
teachings of abstinence-only programs. Teaching girls that they are sluts if they have premarital
sex, socially stigmatizing teen sexuality, making it harder for teens to access contraceptives, and
giving them inaccurate information about sex is a sure way to increase rates of pregnancy and
STIs, which in turn raises the number of single mothers relying on social services. Emphasis on
the nuclear family causes females to become dependent on this nuclear family ideology, and if
they do not have a nuclear family, they are more likely to be living in poverty. There is also the
wage gap that makes it harder for women to earn enough income to take care of themselves, let
alone their families. Homophobia is another social justice issue because LGBTQ representation
is either false or not there at all, which is harmful for homosexual teens because they are not
learning how to protect themselves from STIs and STDs. Abstinence-only education is also an
economic justice issue as well, because millions of tax dollars are going towards funding for
these programs which a hefty percentage of the population does not even support. According to a
2007 survey, more than three out of four respondents preferred comprehensive sex education,
while only 14 percent favored an abstinence-only approach (Alford, 2007, p. 2). So if only 14
percent of the population is in favor of abstinence-only, why is it that the federal government has
invested over 1.5 billion dollars since 1997 in abstinence-only sexual education programs that
are clearly not alleviating the problem? As social workers, we need to be aware of these
programs and their effects on the adolescent population. We also need to educate ourselves on
comprehensive sex education so we can provide services to clients who may need it, in addition
to knowing what services are available to assist teens with sexual health. This way, we can help
teens to be safe and healthy while in sexual relationships instead of hiding the tools they need.

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References

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and Poor Public Health. Retrieved October 31, 2014, from
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Baur, K., & Crooks, R. (2011). Our Sexuality. (11th Ed.) Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Day, P., & Schiele, J. (2013). A New History of Social Welfare (7th Ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
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Friedman, J. (2005, September 16). Teen Sex. CQ Researcher, 15, 761-784. Retrieved from
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Karen (Kay) Perrin, and Bernecki DeJoy Sharon. "Abstinence-Only Education: How We Got
Here and Where We're Going." Journal of Public Health Policy 24.3 (2003): 445-59.
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Koch, K. (1998, July 10). Encouraging Teen Abstinence. CQ Researcher, 8, 577-600.
Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
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State Policies in Brief: Sex and HIV Education. (2014, October 1). Retrieved October 31,
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