Especially for Parents
News and Commentary by Sharon Secor
December 2004
The Disinformation Game
A great deal of attention has been focused on the report, The Content of Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Education Programs, released recently by Congressman Henry Waxman, the ranking minority member on the House Government Reform Committee. Waxman’s report has been seized upon by those who support what are commonly referred to as “comprehensive sex education” programs as proof that abstinence education is both misleading and a failure.
Thus, we witness yet another round of the disinformation game.
In evaluating the validity of Waxman’s report, there are a variety of factors to consider. In addition to the actual content itself, it is important to consider the political or social perspectives that those who sponsored and prepared the report bring to the table, as well as relevant information or data that may have been left out of the report, perhaps because it did not serve to advance or support the desired outcome or conclusion.
For example, Representative Waxman was lauded in an Association of Reproductive Health Professionals newsletter article (July/August) as a “longstanding reproductive health hero.” According to its web site, ARHP was established in 1963 by Alan Guttmacher to serve as “the physician education arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.” Waxman also received a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood for his positions on a variety of issues important to PP, including “confidential family planning access for minors” and “abortion access for minors.”
As reported by WorldNetDaily.com on December 8, 2004, “Waxman has received campaign money from PPFA, NARAL, and…medical associations that also financially benefit from abortion: the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the National Association of Social Workers, among others.” While the abortion debate is not the issue at hand, a key element of “comprehensive sex education” is information about a girl’s “constitutional right” to have an abortion if an unwanted pregnancy occurs while fooling around.
A good deal of the statistical data and research information in Waxman’s report also comes from organizations and individuals working from a specific ideologoical perspective.
On page 5 of Waxman’s report, the text states “this report is a comprehensive evaluation of the content of the curricula used in federally funded abstinence-only education programs.” The footnote that accompanies that statement, number 18, states “the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) and NARAL Pro-Choice America have conducted reviews of some abstinence-only programs. See www.siecus.org; www.naral.org.”
Jill Stanek’s December 8, 2004, WorldNetDaily.com article points out that in addition to SIECUS and NARAL Pro-Choice America, other research resources for Waxman’s report, including “Planned Parenthood Federation of America's research arm, the Alan Guttmacher Institute,” were also ideologically against the concept of abstinence education programs.
Waxman’s report, which concludes that abstinence-only education programs “contain misinformation” as well as “multiple scientific and medical inaccuracies,” focuses a lot of attention on typographical and proofreading errors, such as the statement in one curriculum that there are 24 chromosomes each in the egg and the sperm, when the correct number is 23.
Waxman’s report also labels findings that differ from the conclusions promoted by those who favor comprehensive sex education as being “distorted” and “misleading.” For example, on page 19 of the Waxman report, listed under the heading Abstinence-Only Curricula Contain False and Misleading Information about the Risks of Sexual Activity, we learn that some abstinence curricula advise that “condoms have not been proven effective in blocking the transmission of HPV” and that “no evidence demonstrates condoms’ effectiveness against HPV transmission.”
In an August 10, 2004, 35-page report to Congress, Prevention of Genital Human Papillomavirus Infection, however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on page 13, “there was no epidemiologic evidence that condom use reduced the risk of HPV infection.” Is the CDC is putting out “false and misleading information,” too?
"The half-truths and lies of 'comprehensive' sex-ed backers are far more dangerous and insidious than any mistakes made in the curricula reviewed by Representative Waxman," said Linda Klepacki, a sexual health analyst for Focus on the Family, according to a quote published in a variety of publications, including the December 7, 2004, edition of The Christian Post. "However, teens become pregnant, have abortions, even die as the result of the bill of goods they are sold by the groups Representative Waxman thinks should teach them about sex.”
One of Planned Parenthood’s contributions to providing a comprehensive sex education to youth is teenwire.com. This website, meant to educate preteens and teens about sex-related topics, tells parents to “please remember that this Web site is for teens…This is their place. Take a look around the site if you like, but we prefer that you do not register on the site.”
At teenwire.com, “sexuality and relationship information you can trust from Planned Parenthood Federation of America” includes information about a variety of sexual behavior, often in graphic detail, as well as offering helpful hints to the inexperienced.
“Some straight couples use anal sex as a way to preserve the woman's virginity,” explains teenwire.com to the preteens and teens visiting “their place”, in an October 1, 2003, article by Christy Brownlee. Never mind that anal intercourse is one of the riskiest sexual practices possible in terms of HIV infection and teenagers cannot be counted on to recreate clinical levels of success in their condom usage.
The Waxman report, while pointing to the increase in federal funding received by abstinence programs, neglects to mention (as the Heritage Foundation pointed out in a January 14, 2004, article) that for each dollar invested in teaching abstinence, the government spends $12 on comprehensive sex education or safer sex programs. While casting aspersions upon the effectiveness of abstinence programs, Waxman’s report neglects to mention that “there are currently 10 evaluations showing the effectiveness of abstinence education in reducing teen sexual activity” and that “of these 10 evaluations, 4 were published in peer-reviewed journals,” according to a December 2, 2004, article by Melissa G. Pardue for the Heritage Foundation.
In her article, Pardue cites an April 2003 study published in Adolescent and Family Health. According to this study, “increased abstinence was the major cause of declining birth and pregnancy rates among teen girls. This study found that increased abstinence accounted for 67 percent of the decline in pregnancy rate for teen girls ages 15 to 19. Similarly, 51 percent of the drop in the birth rate for single teen girls was attributed to abstinence.” Furthermore, Pardue wrote “a similar study released in the August 2004 Journal of Adolescent Health attributes 53 percent of the decline in pregnancy rates for 15-17 year olds to decreased sexual activity, which was larger than the decline attributed to contraceptive use.”
The disinformation game is a dangerous one, and has no place in matters so tightly entwined with the physical and mental health of our nation’s youth. We owe our children the best, and it is pure and simple—abstinence is the absolute best choice in the prevention of pregnancy and STDs. And, if we find it unrealistic to expect youth to wait until adulthood before engaging in sexual activity, perhaps we’d better look to ourselves, consider the standards we set—for education, for media and life in general—and the examples we provide.