9/5/2002
By Marian Wallace and Vanessa Warner

Statistics and experience demonstrate that the Biblical prescription for sex within marriage is best for our kids.

“In real life, the unheralded, seldom discussed world of married sex is actually one that satisfies people the most.”¹

It’s a popular message among American educators, health care providers, politicians, entertainers, and those in the media: Let’s protect our youth and give them a better future.

Few disagree that the well-being and future of American youth are threatened by alcohol and drug use, cigarette smoking and violence. Lawsuits against tobacco companies and campaigns to tighten gun laws are popular topics in the mainstream media, and many in the entertainment industry are quick to speak out against drug and tobacco use.

Sadly, however, few in popular culture speak out or even acknowledge the overwhelming risk to youth from sex outside of marriage. They point to the serious problems of teenage pregnancy and abortion rates, but overlook and even deny the underlying problem of premarital sex.

The threat is substantial and the consequences severe. Currently, almost 50 percent of American youth engage in premarital sex before graduating from high school.²

Rather than hearing a message of abstinence,³ our nation’s young people are bombarded with messages that encourage sex outside of marriage. Unbridled sexual activity threatens the well-being and future of our youth and our nation, and Americans can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to this problem. Our youth must hear the message of abstinence—at home, at school and in our culture.

Tracking the Consequences

Millions of Americans are paying a high price for engaging in sex outside of marriage. In 2001 the federal government released The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior, which contained the following information:

• sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) infect approximately 12 million Americans each year;

• an estimated 40,000 new HIV infections occur each year;

• an estimated 1.37 million induced abortions occurred in 1996; and

• nearly one-half of pregnancies are unintended.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), STDs are a rising epidemic in our nation, with some 65 million Americans plagued with an incurable form. The rates of many STDs, including gonorrhea, genital herpes, and human papillomavirus (HPV), continue to rise rapidly. In addition, the viral chlamydia trachomatis is connected to pelvic inflammatory disease, which is the fastest growing cause of infertility.⁴ STDs, in fact, are a direct cause of infertility in both men and women, and an estimated 95 percent of cervical cancer cases are associated with HPV.⁵

It is clear that sexual activity outside of marriage is not the best choice for an individual or society. The human body is not intended to function in this manner without facing serious, debilitating and, sometimes, deadly consequences. According to one prominent medical journal, “Social legitimization of promiscuous sexual activity has probably been one of the major stimuli for the proliferation of sexually transmitted diseases.”⁶ It is documented that engaging in coitus [intercourse] from an early age increases one’s risk of contracting an STD by the age of 30, due to: 1) increased number of sexual partners, and thus, exposure to their STDs; and 2) greater susceptibility of young adults. As a result of such indiscriminate sexual activity, “[A]n estimated two-thirds of all cases of sexually transmitted disease occur in persons younger than age 25, and every year more than 3 million teenagers are affected.”⁷

Teenage pregnancy is probably the best-known consequence of youthful sexual activity. After years of seeing the rate skyrocket, the news has been much better in the last decade or so. Significantly, this news coincides with an increase in abstinence sex education. After it reached an all-time high in 1991, the rate began to fall. By 2000, the pregnancy rate for girls aged 15-19 had fallen 22 percent.⁸

• However, the United States continues to have the highest teenage pregnancy rate of all developed countries.

• Further, the CDC reports that of the estimated 1 million teen pregnancies each year, 95 percent are unintended.⁹

In 1997, the federally funded National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, or Add Health, was released on the health-related behaviors of youth in grades 7-12. The study revealed that the overall picture of teenage sexual activity is not encouraging.

• Nationally, 17 percent of children in the 7^th and 8^th grades report ever having had intercourse.

• For high school students, that rate rises to one in two.¹¹

• Of the 7^th and 8^th grade girls who had ever had intercourse, one in nine had been pregnant.

• Of the 9^th through 12^th grade girls who had ever had intercourse, one in six reported having been pregnant.

Other consequences are equally alarming—and deadly. AIDS continues to be one of the 10 leading killers of adults ages 25-34,¹² and according to a study released in July 2001, the rate of teenage girls contracting HIV rose by almost 117 percent between 1994 and 1998.¹³

In addition, an estimated 1.3 million babies still die each year through abortion.¹⁴

• 20 percent of U.S. abortions each year are performed on teenage girls.¹⁵

• 84 percent of all U.S. abortions are performed on unmarried women.¹⁶

Although some statistics have improved in recent years, studies show that teens who engage in premarital sex are at high risk to “experience emotional and psychological injuries, subsequent marital difficulties, and involvement in other high-risk behaviors.”¹⁷

The Myth of “Safe Sex”

While popular culture is glamorizing sex before marriage outside the schools, many educators are inside teaching students how to engage in sex “safely.” “Safe sex” has been the predominant theme of “comprehensive” sex education curricula since the early 1980s. Dr. Alfred Kinsey popularized the philosophy behind conventional sex education with his controversial reports, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Female (1953). Kinsey, who declared, “All sex is good sex,” conducted fraudulent studies on human sexuality in the early 1940s and founded the Kinsey Institute to continue and to promote his research. The Sex Information & Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) is the educational arm of the Kinsey Institute and has been the primary source for developing guidelines for sexuality education in U.S. public schools.

SIECUS, Planned Parenthood and other groups routinely spread misinformation about sex and encourage youthful sexual experimentation.¹⁸ Most of them claim to support abstinence, but say it is critical for children to learn to engage in “safe sex.” This includes oral sex, “outercourse” (sex without penetration), mutual masturbation, French kissing, fondling, and sex with a condom. Programs that provide this information are the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC. But there is nothing safe about this sex education.

Finding Safety in Condoms?

In 1993, a gang of middle-class teenage boys called the “Spur Posse” competed with each other in a sexual game for “scores” which reflected the number of young women with whom they had sex. Many of these boys’ scores reached the 50s and 60s. When the “game” was discovered and came under attack, one young man remarked, “They teach us condoms this and condoms that, but they don’t teach us any rules.”¹⁹

Advocates of condom-based, or “comprehensive” sex education curricula, commonly refer to their programs as “abstinence based.” But while giving only a nod to abstinence, the curricula focus on birth control, primarily through condoms. The underlying premise? “It’s best to avoid having sex, but if you do, here’s how.” In its effort to “teach teens about sexuality,” Planned Parenthood posted a new game on its Web site, “teenwire,” where cartoon character “Farmer Tina” gives a tour of the animal petting zoo. When the tour reaches a pen filled with sexually transmitted diseases, she warns that anyone having sex without a condom can catch these diseases.²¹

However, a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that condoms did not “prevent the transmission of most sexually transmitted diseases.” In fact, condoms did not provide universal protection against any of the eight STDs examined (including HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, chancroid, trichomoniasis, genital herpes, and HPV). The report concluded that when used correctly and consistently, condoms could reduce the risk of HIV infection by 85 percent, and the risk of gonorrhea—but only for men. But the report stated there was no evidence that condoms reduced infection with HPV, the most common STD.²² Despite these alarming facts, conventional sex education curricula continue to hail condoms.

The Money

Advocates for Youth, an organization which focuses on adolescent “reproductive health,” states, “If these young people have had abstinence-only-until-marriage sexuality education, they will not know how to protect themselves and their partners from STDs and unintended pregnancy. In the end … abstinence-only-until-marriage programs merely keep them from having safer sexual intercourse.”²³

They don’t mention, however, that Planned Parenthood makes money when young people purchase its line of condoms. They don’t mention the millions of dollars that groups like Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) stand to lose due to federal funding of abstinence programs in the states through federal funding under Title V. Before 1996, almost all sex education courses were condom-based. But by 2000, 34 percent of secondary schools used abstinence programs.²⁵ And in 2002, President George W. Bush proposed a $33 million increase in abstinence education. State health officials are realizing that conventional sex education programs do not work.

In order to receive federal money, abstinence programs must teach that sexual activity in “the context of marriage” is the standard, and that children are to be warned about the harmful “psychological and physical effects” of sex outside of marriage. Federal law also requires that any organization receiving Title V program funds must tell the truth about HPV and condoms. This threatens the federal money that groups like Planned Parenthood and SIECUS receive each year to promote their agenda in schools.²⁶

The Cost of Illegitimacy

What became big business for groups favoring conventional sex education also became a tremendous burden for taxpayers. When the 1960s sexual revolution ushered in “free love,” premarital sex suddenly became acceptable—even fashionable—for both teens and adults. Marriage became unnecessary, and children a liability. Sex became a cheap commodity without love or responsibility.

Not surprisingly, “between 1960 and 1999, the percentage [of out-of-wedlock teenage births] increased more than 430 percent.”²⁷ Because babies born to teens more often suffer from low birth weight due to poor prenatal care, they require costly medical attention—often financed by tax dollars. From 1985-1990, the federal government spent $120 billion on teenage childbearing; an estimated $48 billion would have been saved if each birth had been delayed until the mother was more than 20 years old.²⁸

The rise in teenage pregnancy and illegitimacy has contributed to an unprecedented breakdown of the family, the building block of a healthy society. Mothers head 84 percent of all single-parent families in the United States.²⁹ Further, about 40 percent of children who live in these homes have not seen their father in at least one year.³⁰ Many of these fathers have abandoned their financial responsibility, leaving largely uneducated, unskilled women dependent upon the welfare system. In 1998, the median family income for two-parent families was more than four times that of families in which the mother never married.³¹

 

Ratio of Out-of- Wedlock Births The rate of out-of-wedlock births for teenagers has risen from 2.5 percent in 1940 to 78.6 percent in 1999, reaching a record high of 96.5 percent in Baltimore, Maryland.32

Sadly, studies show that children born out-of-wedlock are more likely to repeat the cycle. In fact, daughters of single parents are “164 percent more likely to have a premarital birth of their own, 111 percent more likely to give birth as teenagers, and 92 percent more likely to divorce than daughters of married parents.”³³

However, these are not the only societal costs. According to Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, “when teenagers have babies, both mothers and children tend to have problems—health, social, psychological and economic. Teens who have children out-of-wedlock are more likely to end up at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. … These numbers have enormous economic implications for the country—and for the rearing of children in America.”³⁴

In 1996, Congress took the first step in changing the system, in order to get welfare recipients off the federal payroll and into jobs. According to a recent conference, “The New World of Welfare,” caseloads have dropped by half, and poverty has declined.³⁵ Still, as former National Fatherhood Initiative President Wade Horn and Urban Institute scholar Isabel Sawhill have noted, “By focusing so heavily on moving mothers into the workforce, states have neglected to work on the equally important task of increasing the number of two-parent families.”³⁶ Welfare laws must indeed promote work and healthy marriages as well.

 

“I used to complain to my mother, who is a liberal, about how boyfriends seemed commitment shy. And she would say, ‘Well, why buy the cow if the milk is free?’ We’re in the sexual promised land now, the milk is free, people are surfeited with sex—and yet we’re starved for love.”     — Jennifer Grossman, 30, single, MSNBC-TV contributor37

Failure of “Trial Marriage”

As the sexual revolution gained cultural popularity throughout the 1960s and 1970s, couples began living together as a kind of “trial marriage.” They thought if they could try marriage out before actually taking the vows, they could better determine their compatibility and so decrease the possibility of divorce. Cohabiting couples grew almost tenfold, from about 439,000 in 1960 to 4.24 million in 1998. However, of those couples who choose to live together, only one in six will stay together three years, and only one in ten will last ten years or more.³⁸ Most cohabitating couples, in fact, will last a mere 18 months.³⁹

People are not like cars that can be test-driven. And “trial marriage,” by definition, lacks commitment to resolving conflicts and loving another person in sickness or health and for richer or poorer. Commitment is defined as “a pledge to do something.”⁴⁰ Marriage is, of course, founded upon that commitment. Thus, the term “trial marriage” is an oxymoron, and statistics bear this out.

According to a Justice Department study of domestic violence against women between 1979 and 1987, husbands account for only a small percentage of abusers.⁴¹ On the contrary, boyfriends, ex-boyfriends and ex-spouses account for almost 65 percent of all domestic violence against women, as compared with 9 percent for husbands.⁴² It has also been documented that unmarried pregnant women are three to four times more likely to be assaulted by their boyfriends than are married women by their husbands.⁴³

The same is true about destructive patterns of substance abuse. Studies have shown that unmarried men and women are less likely to curb their use of cocaine and cigarettes.⁴⁴ However, there is greater incentive in marriage, with reports of people forgoing harmful addictions in order to please a mate and preserve a marriage.

As Harvard sociologist Christopher Jencks said about adult pre-marital sex, “[It] may ultimately prove to be a little like smoking dope in the 1960s. In retrospect, maybe it isn’t so good for you after all.”⁴⁵ “Trial marriage” certainly has not been the blessing that everybody expected, not for the men and women involved nor for the children born into these quasi-families.

Raising Kids Who Wait

Kids today want—and desperately need—the insight and direction that parents can impart as they mature and make the transition into the adult world. If, however, that is lacking, they will search for significance, identity, and approval by engaging in high-risk behavior, which frequently includes sex.

Studies of inner-city black teenagers and mothers indicate a strong correlation between the parent-child relationship and premarital sexual activity. It was discovered that “when relationship satisfaction was high, when the mother was seen as opposing premarital sex and when discussions of birth control were minimal, it was 12.5 times more likely that the adolescent would not engage in sexual intercourse than when relationship satisfaction was low, the mother was seen as more equivocal in her opposition to premarital sex, and the mother had talked to a greater extent about birth control.”⁴⁷

A survey of teens conducted in 2000 by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy found that, when asked what was the most influential factor in their decision about sex, teens stated it was their parents.⁴⁸ Furthermore, the Add Health study reports parental relationships as a strong protective factor against adolescent risk behavior.

Parents have far more influence over their children’s attitudes and beliefs than they are often credited with—or even realize. The key is to focus on cultivating a relationship and setting clear guidelines on premarital sex. Abstinence, it has been proven, is best communicated by limiting discussions about birth control and encouraging teens to wait, regardless of whether the child comes from a single—or two-parent household.⁴⁹

Aside from setting high standards in the home and building positive relationships with their teenagers, it is important that parents help their teens develop a healthy sense of self-esteem. Teens’ motives for early sexual activity are not always purely sexual. Many are searching for a sense of love and security that they are lacking at home. Early sexual experience may damage their level of self-esteem, but “delaying first coitus or choosing abstinence as a birth control method can be empowering and ego-enhancing.”⁵⁰

Our culture is encouraging teenagers to assume sexual roles for which they are not prepared. Despite the number of teens engaging in early coitus, an overwhelming number of males and females said they “respected,” “approved,” and considered as “smart” girls and boys who “decided not to have sexual intercourse until they were older or married.”⁵¹ And in a survey conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, of the teens who had said they had engaged in sex, 63 percent said they wished they had waited longer.⁵² This clearly shows that we are failing to offer our young people clear moral guidance for which they are desperately searching. We have started them on the path of promiscuous sex instead of encouraging them to pursue lifelong love.

Parents can point teens to positive outlets that build confidence and teach how to make wise decisions. It has been reported that teenage girls are less likely to become pregnant when involved in volunteer work. “[T]eenagers engaged in community service gain the self-respect that helps them avoid bad choices.”⁵³ This is not surprising, considering that the first sexual encounter for most girls was consensual, “but not wanted.”⁵⁴ It is thus the responsibility of parents and educators to provide healthy alternatives to sex and ways to say “no.”

Parents might plan a special outing for their teens to share their expectations about abstinence. They can present them with the gift of a ring or key chain as a sign of the teen’s commitment to save sex for marriage. It is important that parents use this time to listen to their children and discuss the benefits of waiting.

Numerous studies have also shown that religion acts as a deterrent to early sexual activity. One survey of teenagers discovered that “for both males and females, religious mores against premarital sex carried more weight than those posed by family.”⁵⁵ Again, it was found that “[h]aving a religious affiliation and attending religious services are inversely associated with earlier first sexual intercourse.”⁵⁶ The Add Health study also attributed an increase in teen abstinence to the influence of religious beliefs. Research such as this should cause parents, teachers, and lawmakers to view religion as a positive aid in teaching children the virtues of abstinence and self-control.

Saving Sex

Parents are an important part of the equation in promoting abstinence. It is also vitally important that teachers, health workers, public figures and lawmakers unite to equip teens with the tools necessary to say “yes” to relationships and “no” to sex. One example is the Best Friends Foundation, headquartered in Washington, D.C. Since 1987, Best Friends has provided girls in grades 5-12 with an in-school “character-building” curriculum that includes messages of abstinence from sex, drugs and alcohol. The program has been tremendously successful in schools in 14 states and maintains a 1 percent pregnancy rate in Washington, D.C., compared to 18 percent among all teenagers.⁵⁷

In 1997, the CDC announced that AIDS had dropped from the first to the second-leading killer of adults ages 25 to 44.⁵⁸ Health officials at the CDC attributed the decrease to fewer teens having sex,⁵⁹ thus acknowledging what we have known all along—the spread of AIDS is essentially driven by behavior. However everyone, from health officials to school administrators to policy “experts,” continues to treat the disease, which is a symptom—not the root problem of promiscuity.

Our young people need to be taught that their sexual choices will have real and lasting consequences. They need to know that if they choose to become sexually active, they have a one in four chance of contracting an STD by the age of 21.⁶⁰ They also need to know that one-fifth of all AIDS cases in the United States are caused by HIV infections contracted during the teenage years. They often don’t hear this message in condom-based sex education programs.

 

“The experience of my generation suggests people very rarely get what they are looking for from premarital sex, unless what they’re looking for is purely sexual. When it’s too available, sex itself loses its meaning.”     — Lisa Schiffren, 37, married, wrote Dan Quayle’s famous 1992 Murphy Brown speech in which Quayle criticized the TV character for having a child out of wedlock.61

Abstinence should not be presented as an occasional practice. To be effective, abstinence needs to be taught as a lifestyle in the context of values such as self-control, responsibility, self-respect and healthy relationships. “[G]iving young people skills to be able to resist social and peer pressures that lead them into early sexual involvement … can be the most important educational component to add to basic fact-giving.”⁶²

We need to restore the truth about marriage. “Teenagers [should] be taught that marriage is enjoyable rather than difficult and that it does not involve either undue responsibility or unwarranted sacrifice of personal freedom and happiness.”⁶³ It is also important that they learn that married sex satisfies the most—physically, mentally and emotionally.⁶⁴ According to the authors of Sex in America:

The relationship between being married and having orgasms during sex with a partner was very strong. Married women had much higher rates of usually or always having orgasm. …Those having the most-partnered sex and enjoying it the most are the married people. …⁶⁵ The least satisfied [with sex] [a]re those who [a]re not married, not living with anyone, and who ha[ve] at least two sex partners.⁶⁶

Marital sex studies by Redbook, the popular women’s magazine, and Family Life Seminars found that not only did married couples enjoy sex the most, but that religious people in particular had the highest sexual satisfaction of any other group in terms of the pleasure derived from the intimacy, orgasms and frequency of sex. There is simply no match for the level of love, commitment and tenderness expressed in the marital sexual relationship.

For those who have already engaged in premarital sex, it must be stressed that it is never too late to postpone future sexual activity. Abstinence until marriage is the most effective means of protecting oneself from disease, infertility, and early death from AIDS, cervical cancer, ectopic pregnancy and abortion. In addition, it decreases the emotional baggage in the future marital relationship. The maxim, “You have sex with every other person your partner has ever had sex with,” could also be applied to relationships in general. Every sexual encounter represents a piece of one’s heart that has been given—often thrown—away, and a part of another person that will remain to burden future relationships. Committing oneself to a second virginity is not easy in this sex-saturated culture. But it will free our nation’s singles to pursue their own goals and dreams and better prepare them for the ultimate love experience—marriage.

Abstinence for America

Kids having Kids: 40% of U.S. teens have been pregnant by age 20. This percentage is higher than any industrial ation.67

Abstinence training works—even in the inner city, according to a 1996 study published by Family Planning Perspectives. This merely reiterates what advocates of abstinence education programs knew all along: Abstinence is the only way to go.

Many studies are now being conducted and compiled to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of abstinence-based sex education. But the early conclusions widely show that abstinence education works. For instance, one review noted that the growth of abstinence education coincides with the reduced rates of youth sexual behavior.⁶⁸ An evaluation of the abstinence program Operation Keepsake, in Cleveland, Ohio, revealed that the program reduced the rate of onset of sexual activity of 12—and 13-year-olds by two-thirds and reduced the rate of current sexual activity by roughly one-fifth.⁶⁹

In Atlanta, Georgia, the abstinence program, Postponing Sexual Involvement (PSI), was geared to low-income 8^th-grade students. A study published in Family Planning Perspectives showed the program’s success: When compared with low-income minority students who did not participate, PSI reduced the rate of onset of sexual activity by 60 percent for boys and more than 95 percent for girls.⁷⁰

At least eight other studies and evaluations of abstinence education programs also reveal their substantial success rates. Educating state legislators and local school boards about the successes will encourage them to adopt abstinence education curricula.

There is a reason society traditionally has channeled sexual activity into marriage. Unbridled sexual activity wreaks havoc. This is not just an issue of morality, but a matter of public health. The problems that have become so entrenched in our country, such as AIDS, illegitimate births, poverty, increasing crime and the breakdown of the nuclear family, can all be attributed to the debilitating effects of public policy and a culture that condones sex without love or responsibility.

Summary

“Your decision to remain sexually abstinent until marriage is the right choice. I commend you for taking responsibility for your lives and your future, despite the pressure you may face from popular culture or your peers. …”     — President George W. Bush, in a letter to True Love Waits participants71

As research clearly indicates, America is not suffering from a lack of knowledge about sex, but an absence of virtue. Traditional values like love, commitment, responsibility, integrity and self-control are still relevant today and must be taught.

The greatest threat to America’s security is not foreign invasion, but destruction from within. As Samuel Adams, the “Father of the American Revolution,” once said, “A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. … If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.”⁷²

Modern sex education curricula have already been proven misguided and inadequate. How much more disease, death and social disintegration do we have to encounter before we return to time-honored and tested principles? It’s time for the message of sexual purity to be sounded in the United States once again. Concerned Women for America is calling upon all legislators, parents, and educators to promote abstinence throughout this nation.

Revised: August 2002

End Notes

 

1. Michael, Gagnon, Laumann, and Kolta; Sex in America (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1994), 127; as cited by Joe S. McIlhaney Jr., M.D., Sex (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1997), 93.

2. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, “Fact Sheet: Youth Risk Behavior Trends,” 2000, as found at www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dash/yrbs/trend.htm.

3. Editor’s Note: Before reading further, a look at definitions would be helpful. It used to be that the words “chastity” and “abstinence” were entirely different. Chastity meant and still means purity. In fact, the American Heritage College Dictionary defines chastity as: “The condition or quality of being pure or chaste,” and “virtuous character.” On the other hand, abstinence is defined by the same dictionary as: “The art or practice of refraining from indulging an appetite.” Unfortunately, the media and policymakers have grabbed hold of the less “offensive” word and redefined it so that many think the two words are interchangeable. It is for this reason that CWA has used the word “abstinence.” Therefore, when the word “abstinence” is used, the meaning for “chastity” is intended.

4. Robert Rector, “The Effectiveness of Abstinence Education Programs in Reducing Sexual Activity Among Youth,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, Washington, D.C., No. 1533, 8 April 2002.

5. “HPV Test for Identifying Cervical Cancer Risk Now Offered in Connecticut,” Yale Cancer Center News Release, February 24, 1999, as found at info.med.yale.edu/ycc/releases/release_54_February_24_1999.html.

6. “Sexually Transmitted Diseases,” Postgraduate Medicine 91, no. 5 (April 1992): 301.

7. Lawrence E. Kay, M.D., “Adolescent Sexual Intercourse, Strategies for promoting abstinence in teens,” Postgraduate Medicine 97, no. 6 (June 1995): 121.

8. Fact Sheet: Recent Trends in Teen Pregnancy, Sexual Activity, and Contraceptive Use, The National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy, February 2002, as found at http://www.teenpregnancy.org/resources/reading/fact_sheets/rectrend.asp.

9. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Teen Pregnancy,” 1 June 1999, , as found at www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/teen.htm

10. Suzanne Fields, “Condom Nation,” The Washington Times, 14 April 1997.

11. Ibid.

12. National Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 49, No. 11, 12 October 2001.

13. Suzanne Rostler, “HIV from Heterosexual Sex Soars Among Teen Girls,” Reuters, 20 July 2001.

14. National Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 49, No. 4, 6 June 2001.

15. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Abortion Surveillance-United States, 1995,” Table 4.

16. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States 1998 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1998).

17. Rector, “The Effectiveness of Abstinence Education Programs.”

18. An example is a book by a Kinsey co-author and former SIECUS board member, Wardell B Pomeroy, Ph.D., called Girls and Sex (New York: Delacorte Press, 1981).

19. Suzanne Fields, “Condom Nation.”

20. “Workshop Summary: Scientific Evidence of Condom Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease(STD) Prevention,” prepared by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, and Department of Health and Human Services, July 20, 2001, 25-26, as found at www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/stds/condomreport.pdf.

21. Planned Parenthood Web site, “teenwire,” posted February 25, 2002, as found at www.teenwire.com.

22. Coburn, Tom A., M.D., “Safe Sex Myth Exposed by Scientific Report; Condoms Do Not Prevent Most STDs,” press release, 19 July 2001.

23. “What’s Wrong with Federal Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Requirements,” policy paper, Advocates for Youth, Vol. 12, No. 3, March 2001.

24. Estimates from National Surveys of Family Growth as referenced in “Workshop Summary,” 10.

25. “Condom Cronies Attack Again,” Abstinence Clearinghouse press release, 13 June 2001, as found at www.abstinence.net/NewsEvents_detail.cfm?WhatsNewID=23.

26. Ibid.

27. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, “National Vital Statistics Report,” Vol. 48, No. 16.

28. Ibid.

29. William J. Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 53.

30. Ibid, 54.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid, 121.

33. Ibid, 55.

34. Ibid., 73.

35. Maggie Gallagher, “The next great welfare debate,” Townhall.com, 1 March 2001, as found at www.townhall.com/columnists/maggiegallagher/mg20010301.shtml.

36. Ibid.

37. David Whitman, “Was It Good For Us?” U.S. News and World Report, 19 May 1997, 58.

38. Bennett, 59.

39. Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., “Gaining Ground: A Profile of American Women in the Twentieth Century,” 2001, 38.

40. Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary (The Riverside Publishing, 1994), 287.

41. Maggie Gallagher, “Domestic abuse footnotes and myths,” The Washington Times, 16 April 1997, A13.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. Whitman, 60.

45. Ibid.

46. True Love Waits interview with Brian Nance, 2002, as found at www.lifeway.com.

47. James Jaccard; Patricia J. Dittus; and Vivian V. Gordon, “Maternal Correlates of Adolescent Sexual and Contraceptive Behavior,” Family Planning Perspectives 28, no. 4 (July/August 1996): 162.

48. “Not Just Another Thing To Do: Teens Talk About Sex, Regret, and the Influence of Their Parents,” survey released by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 30 June 2000, as found at www.teenpregnancy.org/resources/data/pdf/teenwant.pdf.

49. Ibid.

50. Maria P. Lenaz, M.D., M.S., Susanne Callahan, B.A., M.A., and Barbara Bedney, C.S.W., “The Viability of Abstinence in an Inner City Adolescent Population.,“ Connecticut Medicine 55, no. 3 (March 1991): 139.

51. Lenaz, 140.

52. Ibid, National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

53. Jay Matthews, “Teenage Girls Who Work as Volunteers Are Less Likely to Get Pregnant, Study Finds,” The Washington Post, 28 August 1997.

54. Barbara Vobejda, “For Many Girls, First Sex Was ‘Not Wanted,’” The Washington Post, 18 June 1997.

55. Lenaz, 140. Emphasis added.

56. Stuart N. Seidman, M.D., William D. Mosher, Ph.D., and Sevgi O. Aral, Ph.D., “Predictors of High-Risk Behavior in Unmarried American Women: Adolescent Environment as Risk Factor,” Journal of Adolescent Health 15 (1994): 130.

57. Best Friends homepage, www.bestfriendsfoundation.org.

58. “AIDS drops to second place as killer of younger adults; epidemic slowing,” The Washington Times, 12 September 1997.

59. Ibid.

60. Douglas Kirby, Ph.D., et al., “An Impact Evaluation of Project SNAP: An AIDS and Pregnancy Prevention Middle School Program,” AIDS Education and Prevention 9, Supplement A (1997), 44.

61. Whitman, 60.

62. Marion Howard, Ph.D., “Saying ‘No’ to Sexual Involvement: A Skill Teens Can Be Helped To Use,” Journal of MAG 76 (March 1987): 184.

63. Ibid., 779.

64. McIlhaney, 112.

65. Sex in America. Cited by McIlhaney, 93.

66. Ibid., 112.

67. USA Today, 7 July 1997.

68. Sellers, Abbylin, “The sexual abstinence message causes positive changes in adolescent behavior: A circumstantial review of relevant statistics,” Westmont College, May 1998.

69. Rector, “The Effectiveness of Abstinence Education.”

70. Ibid.

71. President George W. Bush, in a letter to True Love Waits, 1 February 2002.

72. William J. Federer, America’s God and Country (Coppell, TX: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1994), 23.

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