The 1990s were a challenging time for advocates of “comprehensive” contraceptive sex education (CSE). New abstinence education programs were developing and being accepted in school districts around the country. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, increased federal funding for abstinence education.

The True Love Waits campaign, launched as a Christian outreach in 1993, had enormous success in spreading the message of sexual purity until marriage. Within one year, hundreds of thousands of teenagers signed “commitment” cards in rallies across the country attracting media attention and sending a countercultural message that teens could indeed “wait.” Did American teens actually keep their pledges? A large-scale national survey of 6,800 students from 141 schools found that those who pledged delayed their first sexual intercourse 27 to 38 months (two to three years) later than those not pledging. After controlling for other factors such as whether the parents were married or not and youth church involvement, the pledge “effect” was 18 months. From 1991 until 2001, the number of teenagers who reported they had never had sex increased from 46% to 54%, an increase of 16%, with the biggest increase among male teenagers. 

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Chapter 13

As the culture came to accept the possibility of teen abstinence, advocates of contraceptive sex education felt compelled to come up with their own versions. Planned Parenthood’s entertaining, but questionable, version, “Making Sense of Abstinence,” was discussed in Chapter Two. Other “abstinence-plus” curricula included claims that they gave equal attention to the abstinence message and to contraception.

How credible are such claims?