April 25, 2007

Federally Funded Study-Abstinence-Only Does Not Work

On April 13, 2007, the federally supported evaluation of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs conducted by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. found that abstinence-only programs do not work to change teens’ sexual behavior. According to the study, “students in the abstinence-only programs had a similar number of sexual partners as their peers not in the programs, as well as a similar age of first sex” (SIECUS). Despite these long-awaited results along with more than “ten state evaluations [that] also show that abstinence-only programs failed to change young people’s behavior” (AFY), the federal government continues to fund these ineffective programs at a cost to date of over $1.5 billion wasted tax dollars!
For a synopsis of the Mathematica study, click here.
To read the evaluation report, click here.
To take action to tell congress to eliminate funding for these failed abstinence-only programs, click here.