Study: Abstinence Education Reduces Teen Sexual Activity

April 3, 2012

According to a new study, ninth-graders who complete the eight-lesson abstinence-education course known as Sexual Risk Avoidance are one-and-a-half times more likely to delay having sex during their teen years, OneNewsNow.com reports. The study comes at a "crucial" time when several states are revisiting their sex-education laws, says Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association. "I am really hopeful that policy-makers ... at the federal level, the state level and in communities across the country will take the results of this study very seriously when they're deciding what kind of sex-education programs to implement," Huber said. Those who oppose abstinence-centered education "can no longer say it does not work," she said.