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The teaching of abstinence in
sex education since 1995 didn't bring about any of the state's objectives. Instead of decreasing the number of teen pregnancies by 2003 the state saw higher numbers than states that did teach their teens birth control. Gonorrhea was double the national average in the same year in Lubbock County.
In 1995 then governor
George Bush signed the law mandating abstinence-only education in the state of Texas.
By 2004 the State had spent more than $10 million dollars on the program that stays away from discussion on other ways to avoid teenage pregnancy or halting the spread of HIV. The program in 2004 had failed miserably. Ranked in the bottom four states of teen births (15-17 year-old mothers). Still the state went forth teaching a program that is shunned by The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The CDC in 2004 said of the program: “The effect was very chilling.”
The tide had not turned in 2005 according to a state-sponsored study by
Texas A&M University researchers. The study revealed that instead of slowing down students in all high school grades were more sexually active after undergoing abstinence education.
"We didn't find what many would like for us to find," said A&M researcher Buzz Pruitt, who met with state health authorities last week to discuss the data.
The program is designed to:
* decrease the pregnancy rate among teens.
* reduce the proportion of adolescents engaged in sex.
* reduce the incidence of STDs in adolescents.
* increase the number of youth and adults served through abstinence education.
It's now 2008. This year
Texas spent $17 million to teach their teens to remain virgins. This year according to federal statistics 52.9 percent of Texas students from grades 9 to 12 had sexual intercourse compared to the national average of 47.8. Those children who disregarded their lessons also failed to use a condom more often than those taught about safe sex in school.
In Texas a school has the option of teaching abstinence or nothing at all. That will not be changing in the near future.
"The governor is comfortable with the current law and supports abstinence programs," said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry.
When the bill was written during George Bush's watch as governor it was not meant to eliminate comprehensive sex education in schools, rather offer up an alternative approach to teenagers.
"I think the interpretation has morphed into abstinence-only, which is not our policy," Democrat Garnet Coleman of Houston said. "If I could fix anything, it'd be to make the law more instructive to say, 'This is what you can teach"' about contraceptives.
In California a teacher can show their students the proper way to use a condom using a banana as a visual tool. In Texas a student has to learn about condoms either from their parents or from their friends but not in a school.
How much more funding will be shoveled down the drain in Texas for a program that doesn't work is anyone's guess. What is safe to say is the students in the state do not heed the lessons. In the end, the state pays a much higher cost than funding a program that doesn't work. It also gets to fund more programs for teen mothers who didn't learn that birth control can also to a way to avoid pregnancy when they have sex.
