A Looking into the Mind of a Proponent of Abstinence-Only Sex Education

Turns out, it's pretty empty. Recently, Governor Rick Perry (R-Texas), who is currently running for President of the United States, was asked by one of his constituents why Texas continues abstinence-only sex education when it clearly isn't effective at preventing unintended pregnancies or STIs. To say that Perry stumbled is, well, an understatement. The transcript:

Moderator: Why does Texas continue with abstinence education programs, when they don’t seem to be working? In fact, I think we [in Texas] have the third-highest teen-pregnancy rate in the country right now.
Perry:  Abstinence works. (audience laughs)
Moderator: But we have the third-highest teen teen-pregnancy rate among all states in the country. The questioner’s point is, it doesn’t seem to be working.
Perry: It — it works.

As of January 2010, Texas actually has fourth-highest unintended pregnancy rate, the second-highest teen pregnancy numbers, and the highest teenage birthrates at 62 per 1,000 live births (the moderator incorrectly reported Texas as having the third-highest teen pregnancy rate). If results like these are Governor Perry's idea of something that's working, I'm terribly afraid to see what his idea of something that's not working is! (Perry must grade on a curve.)

So, the empirical, peer-reviewed fact is that abstinence-only sex education is not working in Texas (or anywhere else, for that matter, but that's for another post). How, then, does Perry justify these facts with his goal of maintaining abstinence-only sex education? He doesn't:

Perry: Maybe it's the way it's being taught? Or maybe it's the way it's being applied out there? But the fact of the matter is, it is the best form of, to teach our children.

 Ok, so Perry is convinced that the "best form" of sex education is abstinence-only education, but, still addressing the first question from the moderatore, why?! This is where things get weird:

Perry: I'm sorry, I'm just going to tell you from my own personal life, abstinence works.

What? So, essentially, Governor Perry asserts that abstinence-only sex education works for everyone in Texas because it worked for him. Unfortunately, Perry seems to be totally unaware that his experience is not a universal one, as not everyone in Texas is a white, 61-year-old Evangelical with enough spare cash and political connections to fund a presidential campaign. Thus, Perry's position on abstinence-only sex education is ultimately a celebrity testimonial no greater than Brooke Shields for Latisse, Drew Barrymore for Covergirl, or Mike Rowe for every product that even hints they could use his endorsement.

 Steve Benen from the Washington Monthly makes a very thoughtful assessment of this situation: "The problem here isn’t just that Perry has the wrong answer. The more meaningful problem is that Perry doesn’t seem to know how to even formulate an answer. He starts with a proposition in his mind (abstinence-only education is effective), and when confronted with evidence that the proposition appears false (high teen-pregnancy rates), the governor simply hangs onto his belief, untroubled by evidence." Paul Waldman builds on this argument when he notes that Perry's position is "95 percent moral and 5 percent practical," meaning that Perry "doesn't have a practical argument [for maintaining abstinence-only sex education] because he's probably never thought about it in those terms, and doesn't much care."

It's this last part about proponents of AOSE - that they don't care about the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education because pushing their morality unto others is more important than preventing some of the dire consequences of unintended pregnancy or STI transmission - that worries me. Abstinence-only sex education, at its core, is theoretically education, the process of making people more capable of interpreting and managing the world around them through the sharing of knowledge. AOSE's goal, then, should be simple: to educate. However, because abstinence-only education specifically seeks to hide knowledge by not talking about the potentially-threatened things young people might face, it is not, in fact, education at all; it's propaganda.

Yes, I am making the claim that "abstinence-only sex education" is a misnomer, and at worst, a scam. In a schema in which real-world results (like infection with HIV) are unimportant to those who create curricula, the very purpose behind education is lost. Furthermore, people who would throw children to lions that they never saw coming are either so unaware themselves that they are reckless or so apathetic that they are cruel. And I surely don't want someone like that educating my peers or running my country.

A Wider Look at Kirsten Moore's "Why We Need Contraception Innovation"

The Huffington Post's Kirsten Moore argues that people ought to be as passionate about contraception as they are their iPhones. In one brilliant line, she writes, "As a reproductive health advocate, I can't help but wonder: What if we were as devoted, critical and insistent when it comes to contraceptive technologies as we are when it comes to cell phones?" The crowning glory of her positions is, however: "OK, maybe birth control isn't as sexy as a smart phone, but shouldn't it be? Actually, shouldn't it be sexier?"

She's right. While an astounding 93% of iPhone owners are satisfied with their cell phone, only 57% of women are satisfied with their pill regimen.

This idea is mind-boggling to me. The other day, I had a heated discusssion with a dear friend about a similar topic: she feels passionately that the combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP)'s side effects outweigh its benefits, while I feel that the pill remains a highly-effective method of family planning on the part of women. In truth, we're both right: COCPs have a tragically-long laundry list of potential side effects, and yet they are great at preventing pregnancy. Now, far be it from me to tell my friend that she ought to begin a pill regimen - after all, I believe that men do not deserve the ability to dictate what women should do with their bodies - but I was particularly surprised when my friend stated that one of her objections to the pill is its requirement that she take a pill daily and regularly.

Yes, that's right - she told me that taking one pill at the same time each day was just too damn hard! I couldn't believe it. If one cannot trust another to care enough about their reproductive health to take one single pill each day, how can one trust them to do much else? For instance, if a cisgender man chooses not to have his gonorrhea treated by a medical professional, how can his partner trust him to have their health and wellness in mind? And also, how could my friend forget what a huge, historic lifestyle change COCPs have been for women?

I think modern women are forgetting what a radical, incredible change the invention of the pill was. There's a reason why we call it The Pill - it's the biggie that changed everything! I know why women are undereducated about the significance and importance of the pill: abstience-only sex education proponents pressure the American government to spend $50 million annually towards abstience-only sex education through Title V. That money corners states into adopting AOSE programs, meaning that young women never learn the history of the pill. And how can a person know what they have never been taught?

Moore's article continues with examples of consumer complaints and desires regarding their COCPs. Among her examples are male oral contraception, green birth control, and "multipurpose prevention technologies." What are multipurpose prevention technologies? Multipurpose prevention technologies are innovations that simultaneously prevent pregnancy and STIs. Writes she, "Remember when we had digital cameras, phones and MP3 players crowding our purses? Now we have one multipurpose device that does it all -- and fits neatly into the pocket of those skinny jeans. Why not ask for the same from birth control? Multipurpose prevention technologies would do just that: combining pregnancy prevention with STI or HIV prevention. Like a condom, these innovations would do 'double duty' and may come in [many forms]...." Well, guess what, Kirsten Moore? We already have those, and they're called condoms!

Her thoughts about multipurpose prevention technologies in relation to women's dissatisifaction with their pill reigmens is where her argument becomes a little, well, silly, for the truth is that condoms will always be a preferable method of unintended pregnancy prevention because they, unlike hormonal methods of contraception, also protect against sexually-transmitted infections like syphilis and HIV. While there are many ways of managing an unintended pregnancy - abortion, adoption, and raising the resulting child among them - modern medicine is greatly lacking in the ability to cure the most detrimental STIs. Strangely, Moore doesn't touch on this subject. Perhaps she imagines that her audience is made entirely of monogamous opposite-sex couples who tested STI-negative prior to their sexual relationship together and thus the worry of infection or disease is not present, but as a single gay man who reads her works, I prove that her audience isn't that specific.

Moore's argument that people ought to be more invested in their family planning than they are in their possessions made by Apple isn't wrong, it's simply myopic. Instead of focusing on how women are unhappy when they have to take a single pill each day, we should focus on how proper condom use bypasses said problem by making it possible for women to forgo hormonal birth control if they so choose and has the more-than-nifty added bonus of keeping them safe from STIs.