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Is abstinence education working?

November 25th, 2011

by Charlie Butts

Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America (CWA) says the truth is that teen birth rates have been dropping for several years now, and the stats from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are good news.

“[Teen birth rates] dropped nine percent. This is about the third year in a row when these have declined,” she reports. “It’s also a record low for younger and older teenagers and for every single race, and that is particularly significant because the black rate has been very high in comparison to other races, and also with Hispanic groups.”

Janice Crouse 2The birth rate has also dropped among women who are in their 20s and 30s, as well as for unmarried women. Crouse sees the positive stats as a clear indication that teaching abstinence has had an impact.

“I think it also represents a real victory for people who have advocated traditional values to young women and have told them that there are very definite risks for children and very definite harms for young women themselves when their children are born outside of wedlock and raised in fatherless families,” she suggests

The CWA spokesperson concludes that encouraging youngsters to practice so-called “safe sex” has not been effective for the 20-plus years it has been taught, pointing out that the birth rate has only dropped since implementation of abstinence education. Crouse adds that the idea that a poor economy reduces the birth rate does not prove true when compared to the data collected over the years.

Found here.

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