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Abstinence Increasing Among Teens More teenagers are practicing sexual abstinence in the United States, according to newly-released survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. The CDC report, “Sexual Behavior, Sexual Attraction, and Sexual Identity in the United States: Data From the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG),” is based on survey results from 13,495 respondents collected over a two-year span. It found that among teenagers ages 15-17, a majority of both boys (68 percent) and girls (67 percent) had never had sexual intercourse. Within the same 15-17 year old age bracket, 53 percent of boys and 58 percent of girls reported never having any sexual contact of any kind. By comparison, in the previous NSFG study from 2002, only 46 percent of boys and 49 percent of girls ages 15 to 17 reported no sexual contact, according to a USA Today article on the report. The improvements shown in the data—with more teens choosing abstinence and others deciding to postpone their first sexual encounter—have abstinence advocates celebrating the quantifiable success of abstinence until marriage programs. “If we are serious about decreasing teen sexual activity, we need to use the data to instruct public policy,” said Valerie Huber, Executive Director of the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) in response to the report. “Funding priority should be given to programs that support this healthy trend rather than capitulating to those who want to normalize sex among teens and simply offer contraception as a solution… Our national sex education priorities should seek to further improve these numbers by providing teens with programs that help them to successfully wait for sex.” Jere Royall, an attorney with the North Carolina Family Policy Council, echoed those sentiments. “During times when some argue that abstinence education is unrealistic, these findings offer proponents of abstinence-until-marriage education empirical evidence that postponing sexual activity until marriage is increasingly recognized for what it is: the wisest and healthiest choice for protecting the physical, psychological and spiritual well being of the individual,” Royall said.Related resources: Copyright © 2011. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.
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