WACO, Texas — Teaching young people the importance of sexual abstinence outside of marriage and sharing information about contraception need not be seen as contradictory messages, a Baylor University researcher has concluded.
Michael Sherr, director of doctoral studies at the Texas Baptist university’s school of social work, together with Preston Dyer, professor emeritus at the school, evaluated Project U-Turn, a nine-week comprehensive sex education program for minority youth in Miami.
“A key finding is that teaching about abstinence and providing medically accurate information — including an honest discussion about sexually transmitted diseases and about contraception — are not mutually exclusive,” Sherr said.
No evidence indicated comprehensive programs that include messages about both abstinence and contraception result in increased sexual activity, he reported. Comprehensive sex education can postpone the age at which young people engage in sexual intercourse — potentially until marriage — and it can increase the number of youth who discontinue sexual activity, research showed.
At the same time, among young people who persist in sexual activity, comprehensive sex education can increase their use of contraceptives to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases and the potential for unplanned pregnancies.
Sherr and Dyer focused their study on programs involving 620 minority youth in Miami because research has shown about two-thirds of black teenagers and more than half of Hispanic teens engage in sexual intercourse. Those two ethnic groups also have demonstrated higher incidences of sexually transmitted diseases, sex with multiple partners, unplanned pregnancies and abortions.
When they compared outcomes from programs based in both church and in public school settings, Sherr and Dyer discovered young people in the church-based program ranked higher on every measure consistent with choosing abstinence until marriage. (TAB)
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