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May 9, 2006

Teens who pledge virginity have difficulty 'keeping it up'

Topics: Human Interest

Honest - that's the title of the article at The Age, referring to VIRGINITY pledges, in which young people vow to abstain from sex until marriage, having little "staying power" among those who take them (The Age's wording - not mine). You probably already heard about the report on yesterday's cable.

However, maybe I just have a perverse mind, but I don't think I'd have worded it that way - apparently "staying power" and "keeping it up", regardless of how the phrase is applied, isn't the problem.

As to the study itself, there are experts who dispute the Harvard study behind the report:

A new Harvard University Study being published in the June issue American Journal of Public Health claims half of teens who take a virginity pledge deny it a year later. And it's based on data from a decade ago. Dr. Janice Crouse is with Concerned Women for America.

"In the last ten years we've had so many different studies that we released that show that abstinence pledges do work. Clearly you've got something at work here and that's an agenda from the left."

In fact, Georgia state officials reported this week that teen pregnancy and abortion rates have gone down another year, reflecting a nationwide drop that began in the early 1990s. Janet Rosenbaum, author of the Harvard study, says the goal was not to refute virginity pledges.

"This isn't an evaluation of virginity pledges. It really deals with a methodological issue that you think about when designing a study."

As we all know, the MSM prefers the secularist vision of the Harvard study, so has given the critical version a pass.




Posted by Richard at May 9, 2006 8:38 AM


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