Another nail in the coffin of abstinence training...

STD Risk Not Decreased Despite Virginity Pledges

March 20, 2005

A new study has found that young adults who make virginity pledges are just as likely to be infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) compared with those who do not take a pledge.

The study, by Yale and Columbia University researchers and published in Journal of Adolescent Health debunks the theory being pushed by the abstinence movement in the U.S.

All of the pseudoscience of the religious right is finally starting to come apart. It was really only a matter of time. The assumption that you could just tell teenagers to "stop having sex" and that this would miraculously end all of the social ills of STDs and unplanned pregnancy has now been proved false. It was a dangerous assumption to begin with.

In these days of fast track political attention for myriad right wing "morality" issues, I would hope that this small study will get some kind of serious attention. I am fairly pessimistic about that but it doesn't hurt to get it out there. The more we hear about the pseudo science surrounding the conservative righ the more frightened I get. This piece takes a bit of the pressure off of the "reality based community" and places it back on the bad science of the Christian right, where it belongs.