Professional Journals

Currently being circulated among state offices and their email databases is a new position paper from the Journal of Adolescent Health entitled "Abstinence-only education policies and programs: A position paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine". Who makes up the Society of Adolescent Medicine and what its connection is with other medical organizations for health care in general, and pediatric or adolescent medicine in particular is unspecified. However, its Journal is considered to be of "peer review" status. That's where my problems arise.

This is supposedly a medical journal yet the position paper is decidedly non-medical. Among the 35 references used is not one that indicates any research into what abstinence educators, doctors who promote abstinence, or abstinence advocates have written by way of research, authoritative commentary, results or opinions. It is apparent that not one abstinence curriculum was actually looked at by the five individuals that framed the position paper. The article is a regurgitation of every anti-abstinence argument that has been put forth. Similar wording can be found on countless websites, position papers, editorials, etc. So it is a position paper based on other people's/organization's opinion and then only one segment of that opinion.

So what? Big deal? Imagine a research team approaches the Journal of Adolescent Medicine with a research project that is scientifically sound in all respects but doesn't fit with the "position paper". Will that study get published in this Journal? If they will not publish it, does that paint the research as inadequate even if it is not? Now suppose a community organization is seeking funding for their work with teenagers to promote abstinence, acknowledged as a healthy choice, but all foundations, agencies, etc. have been repeatedly told, through the promulgation of such articles, that without contraception or homosexuality also being taught, those programs should not be funded. Will the abstinence option get a fair hearing if abstinence believers can't teach it? What happens when someone actually wants to do an unbiased evaluation of an abstinence curriculum or program. Who will fund it? Who will publish it? Who will accept positive results if the funders and the publishers by necessity are pro-abstinence?

The entire position paper is rife with idiocy and when I can calm down enough to read it again, I will point those out. In the meantime, I would like everyone to consider the tactics being used to isolate the abstinence message until it will be eliminated from the lexicon of sexual responsibility. What's the purpose of that? Why is it wrong to encourage children, all children, to avoid sexual activity? The health consequences alone would dictate a no-holds-bar approach to that. Think children. Think about their future, their health, their happiness. Someone has to demand that our kids cannot be pawns in a social agenda that has the potential to kill them. Let them be kids now. There's not one advantage to them having sex. Let them face all the social issues heaped on the sex ed burner when they are adults. Mess up their heads in college when they can at least fight back...unless of course they want an A from a professor they disagree with.