United States: For years independent reports have shown that abstinence only sex education, so favoured by the loony fundies of America, just doesn't work. Not only does it result in lots of clueless pregnant teenagers, but also skyrocketing incidences of STDs.
As you would expect, the loony fundies on the Canton, Ohio school board poo-pooed these reports, secure in their belief that Just Saying No
was the all their children needed to know about sex. As expected, it all came back to bite them.
There were 490 female students at Timken High School in 2005, and 65 were pregnant ... According to the Canton Health Department, statistics through July 2005 showed that 104 of the 586 babies born to Canton residents in Aultman Hospital and Mercy Medical Center had mothers between the ages of 11 and 19.
Oh dear. Fortunately, someone on the school board managed to connect the dots and proper sex education will be reinstated.
The new Canton school board program promotes abstinence but also will teach students who decide to have sex how to do so responsibly, bringing the city school district's health curriculum in line with national standards ... Health textbooks, older than some students, will be replaced.
Sex Ed Changes At School With 65 Pregnant Teens - Internet Broadcasting Systems, 15th August 2006 (via killfile.newsvine.com).
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There's also a piece in this week's New Scientist - Is abstinence policy failing to fight HIV? (subscription required to read all of it, but the except's enough to get the gist). "TALK about a policy backfiring. The US government's emphasis on abstinence and faithfulness to prevent the spread of HIV may be leading to an upsurge in infection rates, delegates were told on Monday at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada."
What makes you think that increased teen pregnancy is a failure, to their way of thinking. A girl who gets pregnant before she graudates high school is far less likely to graduate, almost certainly not going to college, and will never be able to support herself. This is one of the specific goals of most fundies - to reduce women to literal slavery again. It is consistent with their view that women are, literally, just another plot of dirt, to be ploughed and planted like any other. It's not like they're *human*, or something.