Coup de Culture Alert: Media Mislead About Effectiveness of Abstinence Pledges
Once again the media are caught with their, if you will excuse the pun, pants down. A study was released a week or so ago that claimed there is no difference in the initial onset of sex between teenagers who took abstinence pledges and other teenagers. Sounds bad for promoting sexual restraint, doesn't it? Not so fast. It turns out that the study actually compared religious conservative teens who took the pledge and religious conservative teens who didn't, where there is indeed little difference. But between teenagers who took the pledge and the average teen--which is sure what I thought the story was about--there is a big difference. From the expose` in the Wall Street Journal, byline William McGurn:
The chain reaction was something out of central casting. A medical journal starts it off by announcing a study comparing teens who take a pledge of virginity until marriage with those who don't. Lo and behold, when they crunch the numbers, they find not much difference between pledgers and nonpledgers: most do not make it to the marriage bed as virgins.In fact, Dr. Bernadine Healy, of US News and World Report crunched the numbers and discovered that the average age of initial sexual intercourse for most teens is 17, but the conservative teens--including abstinence pledgers--wait until age 21! That's a huge difference that translates into fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer abortions, a lower rate of STDs, and less suffering from the acute emotional difficulties that intense early sexual relationships can cause.
Like a pack of randy 15-year-old boys, the press dives right in. "Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex," screams CBS News. "Virginity pledges don't mean much," adds CNN. "Study questions virginity pledges," says the Chicago Tribune. "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds," heralds the Washington Post. "Virginity Pledges Fail to Trump Teen Lust in Look at Older Data," reports Bloomberg. And on it goes.
In other words, teens will be teens, and moms or dads who believe that concepts such as restraint or morality have any application today are living in a dream world. Typical was the lead for the CBS News story: "Teenagers who take virginity pledges are no less sexually active than other teens, according to a new study."
Here's the rub: It just isn't true.
Why push the false story? Part of it is that the study's authors seem to have been engaged in the ubiquitous practice of using the scientific study as advocacy. But that doesn't excuse the media--who should be used to such deception by now, and who certainly check stories the import with which they disagree! But when a story fits the media's own narrative, they often merely print off the press release. On a more fundamental level, I think it is part of the coup de culture. Media reflect the views--and indeed, many consider themselves members of--the liberal elite (as are social scientists), and liberal elites loathe moralizing, which I think they see as the real basis of advocacy for teenage abstinence.
Politicized science, a biased media--all part of the coup de culture that seeks to remake our society--and in my view, not for the better.
Labels: Coup de Culture. Hedonism. Political Science. Media Bias.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 7:29 PM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
Great post! I really enjoy reading your blog. Keep up the good work.
I’ve just started a new blog that will be highlighting the dangers of the secular progressive movement (pro-gay “rights”, pro-abortion, anti-religious freedoms, etc). Unfortunately, most Christians still don’t know what’s going on out there and, as you know, the mainstream media certainly isn’t covering it.
We’re looking to build a solid group of social conservatives who’ll frequent our site regularly and contribute to some good discussions. I hope you’ll check us out!
It looks like your list of links isn't exactly a blogroll, but if you’re interested in adding a link to our site we’ll gladly add you to ours. If not, I understand, but I hope you'll still visit our site as you've obviously got a lot of good information to contribute.
Our blog is called Religion and Morality.
Thanks!
Thanks for posting this article. I saw the "Abstinence pledges don't work" story on the top stories for the Seattle Times for about a week, and something about it just didn't really add up. I mean, sure I took a pledge (nothing "official") and waited until I was married (last August, woo hoo!), but I don't exactly live in a bubble. I know lots and lots of people who delayed sex, waited until they were married, and who are still waiting (even into their 30s). Even people who were promiscuous and later in life took a pledge to wait until they were married. It's disheartening to see article after article written by people who seem to just want to attack these people as though they're stupid for wanting to live that way, for not being "enlightened" or whatever (oh give me a break!).
I'm another one who thought something didn't sound quite right about that report.. Makes sense now..
@Deborah.. Over time, I've come to notice that those who will be that way are suffering through a wee bit of envy towards others doing something they themselves may not have, oh, say, the will power to perform..
They'll also occasionally bash something like that purely to stir the pot.. Stirring the pot translates into more traffic on the Net.. More traffic theoretically generates more $$ through ad clicks and such.. Go figure.. :grin:
Cyber hugs from North Georgia..
Well what especially didn't sound right was that recently I'd read quite a number of reports that abstinence pledges, if not preventing sex until marriage (or something similar) DO delay sex in teens until they're older, so it was one report contrary to lots of different ones I had read over the last few years.
Cindy, perhaps . . . I think it's really sad. And I say this as a person who is not really known for being empathetic.
Heh. Too bad for them everybody I know uses Firefox and has the Adblock Plus plugin. Boooyaaaah!
Scientific study has been been emboldened and enabled to become advocacy by the media.
Just heard Jeff Kooner(sp?) of the Washington Times talking on the Michael Savage about the similarity between Obama and FDR, who I never did think was on the right track and who I always did think started the country out on the path to disaster, and how we are standing on the precipice of something we do not even understand (cp. the death culture), and how the media now, re Obama and this "change" nonsense, as it was re FDR, is to blame.
What I find interesting about all of the hype over providing birth control mechanisms to teenagers at school without parental consent is the underlying, contradictory idea that people's bodies actually do not belong to them. They actually belong to significant others who want sex before marriage. If people aren't having sex readily, there is something wrong with them.
Thus, I often feel that anyone of dating age is vulnerable to the idea that the person they are dating has a right to their bodies. I always felt that the idea of abstinence stopped that by letting people say, "this is my body, and don't expect me to give it to you just because we're going out."
SAFEpres: That's an interesting point. At the same time that syndrome has arisen (while parents stopped giving as much attention to their children as they used to, and didn't grow up with much discipline themselves, and have becoming willing to support the pharmaceutical companies rather than doing the work of parenting), futilitarianism, which regards a person's life as not their own, or even their families', to defend and control, but a "living will"'s, a hospital's, and by extension society's, has taken hold.
Putting people on birth control yields profits for pharmaceutical companies, and the younger, the more profits.
I read in the National Enquirer (they deliberately made their science reporting better than that of the general media some years ago) that the inventor of the birth control pill was a doctor who had had to marry a woman he had not wanted to marry beause there had not been adequate contraception and wanted to prevent other men from suffering similarly. Even without knowing that, it was obvious that the Pill was a bad idea and not in women's interest, or society's. Yet females idiotically took it despite the risk of blood clots, stroke, etc., and are still letting themselves be laboratory animals for other new "wonders of science"; the feminist movement even was happy that women were being thus "freed." Doctors acted as though it was their job to broach the subject of contraception to young girls. Mothers worried about what would happen if their teenage daughter didn't have contraception gave in, rationalizing that it was better than an unwanted pregnancy. In the tradition of Eleanor Roosevelt, Planned Parenthood and its mentality, along with social workers, psychologists, and their ilk (who now butt into everybody's lives and help make family court an institution of travesty), became prevalent.
Then we wonder how utilitarianism took hold and how "science" drives society and has destroyed it?
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