Abstaining From Ineffective Programs – By Emily Dietle

Posted by Martin S Pribble on May 26, 2012 in Featured, Guest Post, Thoughts | 3 comments

Earlier this month, I signed a petition and emailed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about the inclusion of an abstinence only program in their “List of Evidence-Based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs,” called Heritage Keepers®. My argument was that abstinence only programs are not only NOT evidence-based, they are proven ineffective time and time again; even Fox “News” reported this.

You see, while Heritage Keepers® programs claim not to be faith-based, they partner with and provide training resources to religious “community leaders” that seek to teach abstinence only education to teens. They pronounce boldly that they are “primarily interested in providing training and resources for faith and community leaders so they can, in turn, provide training for those in their community.” In other words, they are a religious organization parading as secular- and they are pushing their ineffective abstinence “education” upon our youth, using our tax dollars. The following is the letter I received in response to my email that expressed my disdain for HHS including this faith-based abstinence program in their list.

What are we to take from this response? Well, HSS has good goals and intentions- but they don’t add up. They claim to want programs that have “demonstrated positive impacts on teen pregnancies, HIV or other STDs, and/or risky behaviors,” then add a program to their list that uses methods that don’t work. Abstinence-based education fails, and is only driven by a fear of healthy sexual dialogue that stems from religious paranoia and dogma about sex. Let’s have government-endorsed programs that don’t use our tax dollars to mix religion and health education; and moreover – Let’s teach our nation’s children how to lead healthy, responsible, and informed sex lives.