Sex and Science
The surgeon general’s new report on healthy attitudes about sex should have been a “well, duh” moment. After all, what can be more obvious than conclusions like these:
* Communities should rely on scientific evidence to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies and cases of sexually transmitted disease among teenagers and young adults.
* Americans should respect diversity in sexual orientation.
* Abstinence is good, but there is no evidence that abstinence-only sex education is effective.
Still, these mild findings drew immediate criticism from the political right. But even more than Surgeon General David Satcher, it’s George W. Bush who’s in the hot seat. While the president immediately distanced himself from Satcher’s conclusions, Bush surely must dread the prospect of finding a replacement come February when the Bill Clinton appointee’s term expires. It is hard to conceive of a candidate who could be accepted by both Bush’s conservative core and the mainstream.
The report, based on a two-year review of hundreds of scientific studies, is Satcher’s welcome attempt to determine which approaches have worked and which have not in reducing teen pregnancy, venereal disease and rape. For starters, he finds insufficient research to back claims that teaching abstinence until marriage has delayed sexual activity among teenagers. Satcher also found no scientific evidence that talking about sex in the classroom leads youngsters to have sex. He did find that when youths who had taken sex education became sexually active, they were more likely to use protection than those who were only lectured to wait.
These are logical, sensible conclusions. Yet with federal efforts in the area of sex education targeted on the abstinence-only message and with those programs up for reauthorization later this year, Satcher’s conclusions become fighting words.
“Ideology disguised as science from beginning to end” is how Focus on the Family, a church-based conservative group, archly dismissed the report. The Traditional Values Coalition picked at the conclusion that sexual orientation is inherent.
Bush said through a spokesman that he objected strongly to Satcher’s findings, reiterating his belief in the singular importance of abstinence instruction. Bush is not leading but is being led by a vocal minority of his supporters, and this will haunt him when he looks for a credible scientist to become the next surgeon general.
