Is it true that statistically speaking, girls who are taught safe sex are less likely to get pregnant before age 18 as opposed to girls taught abstinence only?

BRY2K

Here is A response, by no means a definitve answer to a complex issue: "The first national survey comparing the effects of the two types of sex education found in 2008 that students who got comprehensive sex education are half as likely to become teen parents as those who got abstinence-only instruction or no sex education. In the survey, taken by researchers at the University of Washington and published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, teens between 15 and 19 years old who had comprehensive sex education were no more likely to have sex than those who had abstinence-only classes. Neither comprehensive nor abstinence-only instruction had much affect on the odds that student would be infected with an STD". Adjusted for potential confounding factors, those who received comprehensive education were 60% less likely to report teen pregnancy than those who received no sex education and 50% less like to report teen pregnancy than those who received abstinence only education.There was also a strong trend indicating that those who received comprehensive education were less likely to engage in sexual intercourse compared to those who received no sex education. No significant decrease in risk for either pregnancy or engaging in sex was found for abstinence only education. http://depts.washington.edu/hserv/articles/71 http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/596 May 26 08, 5:07 PM