In the seemingly never-ending, tit-for-tat battle over how to best educate our schoolchildren about matters concerning sexuality, the HHS recently released a report that its conservative authors hope is a disturbing wakeup call to the war. The report claims that six of the nine most widely used comprehensive sex education curricula contain medically inaccurate statements, and that none of these programs actually did much to postpone sexual activity and increase condom use among learners. Attempting to discredit comprehensive sex education efforts entirely, the HHS report holds that the curricula contains misleading information about condoms and does not focus on abstinence nearly enough.
Given that this report was requested by conservative Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and former Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum, author of It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, immediately indicates that the claims and aims of this report were anything but kosher. Furthermore, the fact that this analysis was co-conducted by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, which advocates for young people to abstain from sex until they find themselves in a "lifelong mutually monogamous relationship," makes the report even more impure in its intentions and ultimate conclusions.
To be completely fair, upon taking a closer look at the report, some truths exist among the findings reported. Some of the comprehensive programs studied did, indeed, contain inaccurate statements that need tweaking, like the latest information on nonoxynol-9 and risk of HIV transmission. Yet overall, the significance of curricula errors was grossly overstated, with minor inaccuracies blown so far of proportion as to mislead those reading the report at face value into thinking that comprehensive sexual education in schools should be tossed out like a set of '56 Encyclopedia Brittanica for out-dated and downright false material!
Yet another example of such gross overstatement in this report is that comprehensive programs are inaccurate for referring to a dental dam as a "dental dam" instead of using the CDC-approved term "rubber dam." This sort of nitpicking, coupled with the fact that much of the "analysis" referred to in the HHS report involved simple word counting of key terms like "condoms," "sexual intercourse," and "abstinence," can make one really question the quality of the research. Such a methodology provides absolutely no indicator of how effective a program may be in teaching its students effectively!
The complaint that abstinence wasn't given enough emphasis is sorely misguided as well, since, as ETR's senior researcher Douglas Kirby points out, there are many different ways curricula refer to abstinence, e.g., "saying no to sex" or "choosing not to have sex." Kirby's own curriculum, Safer Choices Level 1, was attacked for mentioning condoms 383 times, while supposedly mentioning abstinence only 5. In response, Kirby points out that his program actually contains "twice as much material ... on abstinence" than on prophylactics and birth control!
So, please, in reading this report, do not for one second believe that the Far Right has suddenly drummed up all the "proof" they need to support the notion that their abstinence-only agenda is the best way to go. In fact, this junk science research is simply the Far Right's latest attempt to counter-attack the growing body of evidence that their abstinence-only-until-marriage agenda is completely ineffective. The immorality and disservice to public health and well-being in insinuating that comprehensive education programs are full of errors flies in the fundamental democratic principle of the greater good for the greater number, leaving those in need of proper and thorough sex education and discourse high and dry.
One must always, as a critical consumer, analyzer and user of information disseminated by gubernatorial and press agencies, question the merit and intention of parties conducting research and outputting the results. This one, in particular, stands to be questioned as to the merit of facts contained therein, and to the presentation of findings. One can choose to focus on those facts supporting one stance, while relegating others to the untold.
Political parties and agendas should support what's best for everyone, and these abstinence-only agendas are too fatally flawed to even warrant discourse, much less make it to agenda item status and policy. This ludicrous and irresponsible bent of the Far Right runs counter to properly conducted and presented research examining sex education, including abstinence-only curricula, like the Mathematica Report, Waxman's Report, and research by Bearman and Bruckner, as well as Kirby, relegating their attempted use of this HHS report not only propagandistic, but entirely alarming.
While both abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education curricula have their flaws, the abstinence-only approach has been proven time and time again as being chock-full of grave medical inaccuracies, e.g., "sexual activity outside of marriage is likely to cause physical and psychological harm." Don't be duped by any news reporting that overshadows the true effectiveness of comprehensive sex education programs by failing to fix the failing of biased reports with the necessary and responsible edits to minor details which make a major difference to spin a story! If they would look beyond the surface and dig into the numbers even a little, we would enjoy a more fair and accurate assessment of what's really going on behind the HHS report.
Perhaps, too, if our government would funnel some of the millions of dollars it allots towards abstinence-only efforts to the scientifically-proven comprehensive sex ed campaign, the curriculum could be updated more readily, affording our youth the opportunity to enjoy a healthy and responsible approach to sexuality. After all, it's only natural.