I can’t believe I even have to write this. You might think that after being roundly condemned by a vast host of experts, abstinence-only sexual education (and its supporters) would be relegated to the same level of credibility as the people who think the shape-shifting saurus people are going to incinerate us in our sleep. Alas, that is not the case. Due to what philosopher Martha Nussbaum calls our “quintessentially American puritanical streak” one-third of today’s youth don’t get comprehensive sexual education (which includes information about birth control and condoms in addition to abstinence).

Instead they get federally-funded programs that preach abstinence-only-until-marriage – to the exclusion of every other form of birth control. For anyone actually living in contemporary America this may seem like a gross oversight given the fact that 50% of Americans have had sex by the time they are eighteen.

These programs are not allowed to discuss other kinds of contraception. As far as tactics to curb teen pregnancy go, there seems to be a rather obvious flaw in this plan. I’m no scientist but it seems to me that human beings have sex. A lot. And because no amount of good-Christian-moralizing is going to stop them, perhaps it might be a good idea for us teach young people how to protect themselves.

But the advocates of abstinence-only education fear that with the very mention of birth control our nation’s middle-schoolers will tear each others’ clothes off (with their teeth) right in the middle of health class.

According to a recent study conducted through the University of Washington these fears are unfounded. Students who receive comprehensive sex ed in school are “no more likely to engage in intercourse than peers who were taught just to say no to sex before marriage.”

What’s more, students who are given comprehensive sex ed are half as likely to get pregnant as their abstinence schooled brethren. That bears repeating. Students who are denied access to knowledge about condoms and other contraceptives are 50% more likely to crank out a baby. Could it be that abstinence-only ed is hurting more than it’s helping?

“There may be a sillier strategy for dealing with sex among teens than promoting the choice of ‘abstinence-only-until-marriage’ but I am not quite sure what it is,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in a recent article for MSNBC. “Not only is such an approach contradicted by everything that medicine and science know about teens and sex, but it flies directly in the face of everything all ordinary Americans know about teens and sex.”

Caplan is not alone in his criticisms of abstinence-only education. The American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, the Society for Adolescent Medicine, the American College Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Public Health Association have all officially condemned the practice.

Unfortunately, the American government, still in the clammy grasp of imbecilic moralists, has not listened to this staggering array of public health specialists. Instead, our beloved rulers have continued to pump more than $1.5 billion into abstinence-only education based solely on their belief that sex-before-marriage makes the baby Jesus weep.

Congress is currently debating whether to extend funding of abstinence-only education programs. If you don’t like the fact that one group of Americans are putting their moral beliefs above general public health contact your state’s legislators. Their e-mail addresses and phone numbers are available online. You can contact the congressional representative for our area of Greensboro at: www.bradmiller.house.gov.