Abstinence Education vs "Comprehensive" Sex Ed

Back in March, I posted about a disturbing study from the CDC that stated that 1 in 4 girls had a sexually transmitted disease. But, what disturbed me more than anything was the media's reaction to the story. They immediately blamed abstinence education programs as the reason behind it. Here are the problems that have happened with the study since that day.

1 - There was no causal evidence that abstinence programs were the problem. In fact, the study never even sought out a reason. So, blaming it on abstinence education was done to further an agenda of sex ed advocates.

2 - Later, the study was debunked as being inaccurate. Leading analysts said the study was unsound and had a margin of error above 30%, which is tantamount to making it unscientific.

3 - The first release of information was spit out by all major media outlets with the same basic message - abstinence doesn't work. This is bunk! There was no critical analysis, but rather a cut-and-paste job in the media. So, when the story was issued that there were problems, nary a word was found on any major media outlets.

4 - Now, the RAND corporation has released a new study that abstinence programs and abstinence pledges taken by teens do seem to work. But, again, no press coverage can be found. If you want to read the abstract of the study that was printed in the Journal of Adolescent Health, it can be found here.

For some good coverage on the issue, then getreligion.org has some good insights. I will quote one:

so unlike that silly CDC report, here we have a legitimate study that shows that abstinence pledges “work” and where is the mainstream coverage? All I could find was that blog post and a sidebar mention accompanying an uncritical story in The Columbian (Wash.) about the purity movement