Recent administrative actions signal a shift from promoting comprehensive sexual health information to abstinence-only education, which concerns reproductive rights advocates who question abstinence promotion’s efficacy at preventing teen pregnancy.
The administration already announced last year the discontinuation of a teen pregnancy prevention, or TPP, program that funded grants to communities that study ways to prevent teens from getting pregnant and run prevention programs. The Department of Health and Human Services has promoted more abstinence-only alternatives and increasingly uses the phrase “sexual risk avoidance,” another term for abstinence, in materials.
Promotion of abstinence-only programs is routinely panned by the left for being less successful than broader programs. States like Mississippi, which heavily emphasize abstinence education, also have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy.
“Focusing on one ideological approach doesn’t meet the diverse needs of teens, and cannot be all things to all people,” said Rachel Fey, director of public policy at Power to Decide, an advocacy group dedicated to preventing unplanned pregnancies. She said using only one approach and not maintaining the high standards of evidence and evaluation that the current program uses “would be taking a step backwards in meeting the needs of young people.”
Supporters of abstinence-only education program argue that it is the only effective way to prevent teen pregnancy and minimize the risk of spreading sexually transmitted diseases. Some groups also emphasize the religious components of the importance of promoting abstinence among teens. And some also criticize the prevention program ended by the Trump administration.
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