Our Position

American Atheists supports requiring public schools to teach comprehensive, medically-accurate sex education using age-appropriate curricula. We oppose funding for so-called “abstinence-only until marriage” (AOUM) sex education.

Background

Quality sex education in public schools can and should play an important role in providing comprehensive and medically accurate sex education to our nation’s young people. Comprehensive sex education helps to foster healthy relationships and development, reduces the risk of unintended pregnancy, and lowers the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Some states state offer require by law that comprehensive sex education and ensure that the curriculum covers a wide range of relevant issues beyond abstinence. A comprehensive curriculum generally teaches abstinence as the best method for avoiding STIs and unintended pregnancies while also teaching that contraception reduces the risk of unintended pregnancy and infection from STIs, including HIV. These programs also develop interpersonal and other communication skills and help young people explore their own values, goals, and options.

However, some states’ public school sex education curriculum teach “abstinence only.” In some cases, these states have laws mandating that programs must exclusively or primarily promote abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage. By doing so, these programs tell students that abstinence is an unmarried person’s only moral option. This also includes “abstinence-plus” programs, which provide some information about contraception in the context of strong abstinence messages.

Some states go so far as to have laws that prohibit educators from discussing LGBTQ topics in school or mandate that such topics be presented negatively. While these laws usually apply only to sex education, they are frequently applied more broadly by school districts. Many of these laws are not enforced, but they may still stigmatize LGBTQ students and have a negative impact on the school environment.

Abstinence-only until marriage sex education not reduce pregnancy rates, STI infection rates, nor postpone commencement of sexual activity; rather, it increases teen pregnancy rates and STI infection rates. Abstinence-only until marriage programs are not neutral or benign “options”—they are actively harming young people.

Recent Developments

Despite evidence indicating that “adolescents who intend to practice abstinence fail to actually do so, and they often fail to use condoms or other forms of contraception when they do have intercourse” and that AOUM is “not effective at preventing pregnancy or STIs, nor do they have a positive impact on age at first sexual intercourse, number of sexual partners or other behavior,” the United States has spent more than $2 billion on AOUM programs in the last 20 years.

While that funding dramatically decreased during the Obama administration, the Trump administration expressed interest in including AOUM funding for fiscal year 2018 and beyond.