Teens Really Need `Best Friends'

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 30, 2001 | by Catherine Edwards

Using no federal funding, an `abstinence only' program called `Best Friends' provides teens with moral support and the facts on the real consequences of premarital sex.

Penn State University Freshman Lesley Long knew what to tell the young man who kept knocking on her door and coming in to sit on her dorm-room bed. "Look, I don't want to have sex with you," she said directly, taking him completely off guard. "I'm a virgin and am waiting until I am married. Now go away!" In disbelief the young man pressed her on the issue until, shrugging and with a sheepish grin, he realized she meant what she said.

Long had been a member of an "abstinence only" education program, called "Best Friends," in her Washington public school since she was 12 years old. Best Friends is a program for girls that begins in elementary school and continues through graduation from high school. It teaches teen-agers to abstain from sex, drugs and alcohol. The girls participate in an instructional curriculum throughout the year, engage in group discussion and work with mentors at their schools to help keep them accountable to their commitment. They learn the benefits of exercise and good nutrition and the dangers of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

"This kind of education requires long-term commitment and we get results," says Best Friends board member Mary Jane Shackelford. "But we have to start with girls as early as the fifth grade now." On a cool July morning, Lesley Long and Maria Bennett -- two girls who have been graduated from the program -- sat down with Insight to explain why abstinence-only education works. As Bennett put it, "A lot of guys respect you more when they know you respect yourself enough to wait until marriage to have sex. Best Friends gives you confidence. It's not just about sex; it's about being smart and making wise decisions."

Bennett will attend Hofstra University in the fall. She and Long both have received scholarships from Best Friends to help fund their university education.

The girls say they are amazed by the lack of knowledge other teens have about STDs. "See, Best Friends doesn't just say, `Don't have sex,'" Bennett explains. "They say why you shouldn't and then also tell us about all the diseases you can get. I am amazed that most kids know nothing about even the most common diseases out there."

Bennett's observations are echoed by many lawmakers and other public officials who believe that teens are not being given the proper message about sex, even as a public-health issue, and that there is no such thing as "safe sex." Best Friends receives no federal funding, but has proved more effective than other abstinence-based programs.

In 1996, Congress mandated that $50 million be set aside as direct block grants to states to promote abstinence education among the young. Much of the money was wasted, say congressional staffers, but $20 million more now has been appropriated and this time programs and expenditures will be monitored closely by Congress.

In Utah, for example, much of the money was spent on recreation programs and field trips, including $800 for basketballs and soccer equipment. In Montana, as much as 78 percent of its federal funding for abstinence education was spent on administrative overhead despite the fact that federal regulations have put a 10 percent cap on overhead.

Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., sits on the House Appropriations Committee, and his staff tells Insight he will monitor spending personally on this program to ensure tax money is spent as Congress intended. Last year Istook confronted the Clinton administration for trying to cut abstinence funding from the budget. The congressman said then, "It's sad that the Clinton administration condones the teen sex that causes disease, unwanted pregnancies and abortions and that traps young mothers in a cycle of poverty. I won't give up on my effort to help our youth avoid this, and neither will the Congress."

Why this movement of the issue from one of morality to one of public health? Is the latter just more politically correct than the former, or has widespread sexual promiscuity created unprecedented dangers? The deadly threat of HIV/AIDS is well-known. But, contrary to popular belief, the most common sexually transmitted diseases cannot reliably be prevented by wearing a condom. Human papilloma virus (HPV), the most common STD, is one of them. It causes more than 90 percent of cancer and pre-cancer of the cervix, which is in turn the cause of more than 5,000 deaths of American women per year. According to the most recent report issued by the surgeon general, 5.5 million new cases of cervical cancer are occurring per year.

Meanwhile, there are 12 million new cases of STDs annually, and 22 percent of all Americans age 12 and older have been infected with genital herpes, an incurable venereal disease that wearing a condom does not prevent. Among African-American girls older than age 11, the incidence is pandemic, with 49 percent suffering genital herpes. The most commonly reported STD among all American women is chlamydia -- which is the cause of infertility in one-third of women of child-bearing age who cannot become pregnant.