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The following article is from The Vanier Institute for the Family.

Ottawa – It comes as no surprise that many couples choose to live together rather than marry, at least for a period of time. What may surprise you is that for some couples, especially older ones, this benefits all parties. For others, cohabitation benefits one partner over the other, most often men, who may view cohabiting as convenient access to their current sexual partner. Overall, marriage is a far more beneficial arrangement for children.

These are just a few of the findings of Anne-Marie Ambert’s new paper, Cohabitation and Marriage: How Are They Related?, released today by the Vanier Institute of the Family as part of its ongoing Contemporary Family Trends series. Ambert has synthesized the findings of hundreds of research papers that examined the social, emotional and financial effects of cohabitation and marriage on men, women, children and society.

“While more research is needed to confirm some of the implications and conclusions of Ambert’s paper, it raises some troubling topics which we, as a society, would be well-advised to consider,” says Robert Glossop, Executive Director of Programs and Research at the Vanier Institute. In particular, he adds, Ambert found that cohabitation and marriage are not equivalent unless accompanied by equivalent levels of commitment, fidelity and stability, all of which are far more often lacking in cohabiting relationships.

“More than half of American teens ages 15 to 19 have engaged in oral sex, increasing to nearly 70% for those who are 18 and 19, according to the largest federal study of the nation’s sexual practices.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-oralsex16sep16,1,6131822.story?coll=la-news-science&ctrack=1&cset=true

CLEVELAND, Ohio, September 8, 2005, (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recent study, just published in the American Journal of Health Behaviour, shows that “abstinence-until-marriage” programs have produced encouraging results among middle school students in Greater Cleveland.

The study was conducted by surveying 2,069 grade seven and eight students that had participated in the school-based program called “For Keeps”, run by Operation Keepsake in Mayfield, OH. The program consists of five 40 minute sessions. The sessions stress abstinence-until-marriage, presents virginity as a “gift” that should be shared in marriage and emphasizes the dangers of teen pregnancy and sexual diseases, including HIV. Those students who were sexually active reported fewer sexual partners and sexual encounters five months later.

Reactions to the survey were mixed and will surely cause debate among sexual educators and condom advocates.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Elaine Borawski, commented in the Plains Dealer newspaper that the results were a surprise. The public health researcher at Case Western Reserve University said the federally tax funded program positively influenced sexually active adolescents. “Everyone says that kids who have had sex won’t find programs like this relevant,” said Borawski, who has reviewed Operation Keepsake’s programs in the past. “It did seem that it resonated with them more than we thought.”

While remaining cautiously optimistic, Dr. Douglas Kirby, a nationally recognized expert on sex education, was concerned that the study’s short time frame of five months reduced its strength. Still, supporters of “abstinence-until-marriage” are encouraged and are pushing for more studies.

Critics, however, like Earl Pike, executive director of the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland, unsurprisingly took the study’s findings to task, calling them “disturbing.” Pike stated that the government should curtail funding until a more rigorous, long term study proved that the programs work. “I wouldn’t be proud to promote that abstinence programs educate young people to avoid proven methods like condoms that we know reduce risk and save lives,” Pike said.

Pike’s comments, however, fail to take into account that curtailing the funding of the abstinence program would logically reduce the program’s effectiveness, thereby hindering an accurate assessment of its successfulness.

Globally, statistical evidence in Africa seems to support the findings of the Cleveland study. Uganda, which promotes abstinence-before-marriage programs has the lowest reported cases of AIDS/HIV while Botswana, a country that actively promotes condoms, has the highest rates.

UK Sex-Ed Backfire: Survey Reveals Increased Pregnancy Rates in Teens Subjected to Program

LONDON, UK, March 15, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new survey conducted in the UK has revealed that teenage pregnancy rates are highest in areas that have been most aggressive in promoting sex education. The report revealed that explicit sex education and providing condoms to young girls simply encourages them to become sexually active.

The report, titled Sex Education or Indoctrination?, was conducted by the UK’s Family Education Trust, as revealed in the Telegraph yesterday.

Official figures reveal that teenage pregnancies rose in Britain by an annual rate of 800 from 38,439 in 2001 to 39,286 in 2002, despite the £15 million being spent to counter the situation. The pregnancies led to 17,682 of the children being aborted in 2001.

The number of cases of sexually transmitted diseases has also risen by an alarming 62 percent between 1997’s 25,143 cases and 2002’s 40,821 cases.

In a bid to counter Western Europe’s highest teenage pregnancy rate — one in ten babies born are to teenage mothers — the UK government implemented the Teenage Pregnancy Unit in 1999. The goal of the Unit is to reduce teenage pregnancies by 50 percent by 2010, and 15 percent by the end of 2004. The Family Education Trust analysis revealed that the Teenage Pregnancy Unit strategy involves explicit sex education by nurses in schools, during which teachers are often not present; free condoms; and sending girls a birthday card on their 14th birthday inviting them to a confidential medical examination without consent from their parents.

Valerie Riches, author of the report, said that “The Government’s teenage pregnancy strategy is based on the premise that it is unrealistic to expect young people to abstain from sex. They have embarked on a damage-limitation exercise dependent on condom use and the use of the morning-after pill. The figures show, however, that it might be wiser to support the majority in abstinence and demonstrate to the minority the physical, emotional and psychological benefits of delaying sex until marriage.”

Riches criticized the Teenage Pregnancy Unit’s resources, produced by the UK’s Family Planning Association, including a guide called “4 Girls”, that informs teenagers on how to obtain contraception. Another pamphlet tells girls “Contraceptive advice and supplies are free to everyone. It doesn’t matter how old you are . . . there’s no right age to have sex.” She told the UK Telegraph that “The Family Planning Association sows confusion in a child’s mind about right and wrong and presents only one moral absolute – the use of condoms.”

The report also highlights the success of the abstinence-promotion program in the US, which has realized a 10 percent reduction in teenage pregnancy rates.

Read the related LifeSiteNews.com report “Major New U.S. Study Proves that Abstinence Works,” which revealed that among unmarried girls, abstinence accounted for a 67 percent drop in pregnancy rate at:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/apr/03041402.html

See also Abstinence Until Marriage: The Best Message for Teens
http://www.frc.org/get/is03b1.cfm