Abstinence-Only Programs

Abstinence-only programs are a form of sexual education that encourages and teaches not having sex outside of marriage. There has been a great deal of debate over if abstinence programs work amongst children and adolescents. Each of my three articles examined a different abstinence-only program that was administrated to children and adolescents. Through the L.I Teen Freedom program, the adolescents increased in indicators such as pro-abstinence attitudes, self efficacy to remain abstinent and interventions and behaviors to practice abstinence (Rue et al., 2012). Through the program, Family Action Model for Empowerment the participants decreased in the risky sexual behavior (Abel et al., 2008). Through the abstinence Reasons of Heart program,

(2008) aimed to investigate the impact of the Reasons of Heart abstinence program on sexual intercourse and possible cognitive mediators of sexual initiation. They hypothesized that Reasons of Heart would lower the rate of sexual initiation over all one year after the intervention. The core of the Reasons of Heart program was nine unit curriculum taught over twenty class periods. The program emphasized the development of personal characteristics and taught the benefits for individuals and their families supporting them in the idea of abstaining from sex until marriage. The study selected three middles schools to receive the ROH program and two other middle schools as the comparison group who did not receive the ROH program. All seventh graders who had similar demographics and location represented in these five schools participated in the experiment. The sample size had a total of three hundred and forty seven virgins in the program group and one hundred and ninety-three in the comparison group. The data was collected using paper and pencil questionnaires that were collect pretest, posttest and one twelve months after the program completion. The overall results of the study were out of the one hundred and eighty-nine in the comparison group, thirty one or 16.4% had initiated in sexual intercourse by the one year follow up. Compared to the program intervention group, only thirty-two out of the three hundred and forty seven virgins or 9.2% had

The first study supported their hypothesis that the program would increase pro-abstinence (Rue et al., 2012). The second study found that Family Action Model for Empowerment program helped to reduce risky behavior in teens in the mindset of abstinence (Abel et al., 2008). The third study found that their abstinence Reasons of Heart program achieved a significant reduction in teen sexual development (Weed et al., 2008). My position within the debate was to argue that Abstinence-only programs do work. Based on all the supporting evidence and results of my three articles, they prove and support the idea that abstinence programs do