Abstinence

Abstinence opponents like SIECUS claim that abstinence programs have not been proven successful despite the many studies that support abstinence education across the country, including Northwestern University Medical School's high-quality evaluations on Project Reality's programs. Both the Game Plan evaluation and Navigator initial results have indicated that survey data presents clear and convincing evidence that adolescents who participated in an abstinence education program shifted their attitudes towards a stronger belief in the value of abstinence and a greater commitment to practice abstinence until marriage. In addition, it shows that the abstinence message can reach youth who are already sexually active. For example, in the Game Plan evaluation post-test, 83 percent of teens agreed/strongly agreed that a person who has been sexually active is able to choose abstinence for the future vs. the pre-test figure of 48 percent. The Navigator initial results were almost identical with 83 percent post-test vs. 45 percent pre-test. In addition, numbers dramatically increased in both evaluations when asked if abstinence is a healthy choice. Game Plan results showed an increase from 57 percent pre-test to 87 percent post-test in the agree/strongly agree category and Navigator results increased from 54 percent pre-test to 82 percent post-test respectively. Visit http://projectreality.org/reality/teachers/index.php?id=38 to see evaluation results (U.S. Newswire, 11/3/05, http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=56159).