SIECUS Community Action Kit - Understanding Abstinence

MEDICAL ACCURACY ABSTINENCE-ONLY-UNTIL-MARRIAGE PROGRAMS FAIL TO MEET THIS BASIC REQUIREMENT

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Effective sexuality education, as with any type of health education, should provide medically accurate and objective information. Instruction regarding sexual health that includes inaccurate or biased information is irresponsible and dangerous and ultimately puts our young people at risk for unintended pregnancy and disease.
Unfortunately, many of the curricula used in abstinence-only-until-marriage programs—whether they are federally funded or privately supported—rely on misinformation and distorted statistics.
Medical accuracy should be viewed as a minimum standard of education. In fact, supporters of comprehensive sexuality education have worked to insert language requiring that curricula and materials be medically accurate into policies regulating federal abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, state mandates, and local schools.
Such efforts are often met with opposition from those who assert that abstinenceonly- until-marriage programs are already medically accurate and others who argue that it is impossible to define medical accuracy because health experts often disagree.
Advocates who have faced these arguments have countered with numerous examples of inaccurate statements in some popular abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula. (See “Common Characteristics of Fear-Based, Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs” for more information.) In addition, advocates have determined a number of ways to identify and define medically accurate information.
In California, for example, legislation defines medical accuracy as instruction that is “verified or supported by research conducted in compliance with scientific methods and published in peer-reviewed journals, where appropriate, and recognized as accurate and objective by professional organizations and agencies with expertise in the relevant field, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” (AB 246).
A variety of other language is also used to define medical accuracy. For example, the Responsible Education About Life Act (S. 368/H.R. 2553) which was recently introduced in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives identifies the American Medical Association as a credible source for setting standards in this area.