Do abstinence-based educators lie to students?

Representative Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) is at it again, asserting that students are being presented with inaccurate information in some federally funded abstinence-only sex ed programs. Only problem is, are the things Waxman is complaining about actually more accurate than not? Waxman and his teach 'em everything brethren miss the forest for the trees.

For example, Waxman cite the following "misconceptions": A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person." Ok, granting that this is poorly stated from a semantic standpoint, isn't the point that this is the timeframe in which base cognitive functioning comes "on-line" so to speak?

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears. There is still a debate about whether or not this is possible; while the viral load in such fluids is extremely low, the virus is still present in such bodily secretions, and thus the possibility, however slim, must still be said to exist. A scare tactic? Perhaps to an extent, but we are talking about something here for which there is no cure.


• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse. Again, huge debate here over the actual failure rate. But even if the correct failure rate is 3 percent as is claimed by the government researchers that Rep. Waxman cites, isn't the true point that in an estimated 3 (or 31!!!) out of every 100 instances when condoms are used in an instance when one hetereosexual partner has HIV that there is a protection failure! How many such acts of intercourse take place even on a daily basis? The odds, no matter what they are, are not good here. Condoms are not a good solution. Besides, this is assuming perfect usage anyway. Do you want to assume "perfect usage" when it's your son's or daughter's life on the line? Not to mention the amazing discrepancies between the "HIV failure rate" and the "pregancy failure rate" for condoms--we are really supposed to believe that condoms are better at preventing HIV infection than they are at preventing pregancy, when a sperm is way bigger than a virus? Nor does this mention the differences in potential for infection between men and women--when that condom fails, it is the woman partner, by virtue of her biological makeup, who is much more at risk for infection.


One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion, the Waxman report said. Ok, first question. Which textbook, and what, exactly, does it say? My textbooks say many things, and not all of those things are factually accurate. The writers of an obstetrics textbook may not have an agenda in how they frame or report things? Get real. The evidence on the psychological and physical effects of selective abortion is out there, and it shows that abortion is profoudly damaging.

Maybe we need further debate on who exactly is "lying to our kids"?

One great resource to check out is Dr. Meg Meeker's excellent book Epidemic: How Teen Sex is Killing Our Kids