Teenage Canoodling

A friend just pointed me to a study in conducted in Britain in which a program that provided young girls with information about - and access to - birth control and condoms - resulted in the control group’s pregnancy rate being double the normal rate.

Aside from the problems with the causal inferences that many people draw from these studies - Event A is followed by Event B, therefore Event A caused Event B, these types of studies pose other problems.

One problem is that they tend to confuse two separate (but related) questions: (1) what is the best way to discourage young people from having sex; and (2) what is the best way to reduce teen pregnancy?

Social Conservatives generally believe that the best way to reduce teen pregnancy is to discourage teens from having sex. They also believe that the best way to discourage teens from having sex is to send an unequivocal "abstinence is virtuous" message accompanied with the requisite warnings about the potential ill consequences of sexual activity outside of marriage. They believe that providing teens with information about birth control and disease prevention devices - such as condoms - sends a mixed signal that undermines the effectiveness of the "virtue" and "danger” messages.

Social liberals, it would appear, agree that sending “virtue” and “danger” messages contribute to the goal of discouraging young people from having sex. But they disagree that providing information about birth-control and condoms undermines the “virtue” and “danger” messages - or does so to a problematic degree. They believe that providing this information affords those teens who decide to ignore the “virtue” and “danger” messages the opportunity to protect themselves from the problematic consequences of their canoodling.

Social liberals are actually trying to answer two questions regarding teen pregnancy prevention; (1) what is the best way to discourage young people from having sex - which eliminates all possibility of pregnancy; and (2) what is the best way to prevent pregnancy among teens that decide not to heed our call to virtue? For their part, social conservatives are only asking one question. They’re asking, what is the best way to discourage young people from having sex?

That’s telling. It indicates that social conservatives are willing to expose teens who succumb to temptation to the risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease - which might be reduced if these teens had access to condoms - merely to keep those teens who can be deterred from having any sex at all, protected or otherwise.

Expose the libido challenged to mortal danger to keep sweet honey girl pure. That appears to be the posture of the abstinence only crowd.

Personally, I’d rather see a lot more teenage canoodling among the deterrable, if it reduced teenage pregnancy and disease over all.

But then again, I’m a Christian.

Joe H.