Contraceptive Failure & "Comprehensive" Sex Ed...

By Ruben on July 10, 2007 8:48 AM | No Comments

Posted by Ruben on Contraceptionblog.com

Jennifer Roback Morse wrote an excellent commentary on getting the government out of promoting "comprehensive" sex ed programs and contraceptives.. Here are some excepts:

The commonly quoted failure rates of 8% for the Pill and 15% for the condom are inflated by the highly successful use by middle-aged, middle-class married couples. Yet, the government promotes contraception most heavily among the young, the poor and the single. The "overall failure rates" are simply not relevant to this target population.
A poor cohabiting teenager using the Pill has a failure rate of 48.4%. You read that correctly: nearly half of poor cohabiting teenagers get pregnant during their first year using the Pill. If she kicked her boyfriend out of the house, or if she married him, her probability of pregnancy drops to 12.9%. At the other extreme, a middle-aged, middle-class married woman has a 3% chance of getting pregnant after a year on the Pill.

Over 70% of poor, cohabiting teenagers using condoms, will be pregnant within a year. By contrast, the middle-aged, middle-class married woman has a 6% chance of pregnancy after a year of condom use.

Contraceptive failure doesn't always lead to abortion, but it certainly sustains the demand (at least among adolescents and young adults.)

"Generic" sex ed isn't at issue here, after all teaching teens about their bodies is ok. The real controversy centers around so called "comprehensive" sex ed programs which teach teens how to try circumvent the natural functions of their bodies via contraceptives.

Further resources: