MP Nadine
Dorries has bravely proposed a new law requiring that schools teaching
abstinence education to girls aged 13-16. I say brave, because there is
something about the word ‘abstinence’ that makes some people break out in
spots. She would have been better off using a term like ‘sexual delay’.

I was on
the breakfast show on Newstalk yesterday (May 6)
discussing the Dorries proposal which prompted all the usual attacks on Twitter
and a few in the House of Commons as well. But in fact her proposal undoubtedly
chimes with the wishes of most parents who can’t wish that their 15 and 16
years old are having sex so young, and it also happens to chime with reality.

This second
fact will surprise a lot of people, after all, aren’t all teenagers of
school-going age (or at least a majority of them) having sex, and isn’t the
best we can hope for that they use a condom?

Actually,
that’s not the best we can hope for because a majority of school-going
teenagers are not having sex, not even close to it. In fact, most are delaying
having sex (that is, they are abstaining) without any formal abstinence
education whatever.

According
to a study called ‘The Irish Study of Sexual Health and Relationships’ carried
out by the ERSI on behalf of the Department of Health and the Crisis Pregnancy
Agency (CPA), among young Irish people the average age of first sexual
intercourse is 17, but only 21 percent of girls and 30 percent of boys have had
sex before that age.

There is a
big difference in age of first sexual intercourse by social class as well, with
people in disadvantaged areas having sex younger on average that those from
middle class areas.

Furthermore,
the study says that having sex before the age of 17 is associated among girls
with a 70 percent increased likelihood of experiencing a crisis pregnancy.

The CPA is
so convinced that teenagers should delay having sex that it launched a campaign
and a website called b4udecide
to encourage delay. The word ‘abstinence’ isn’t used because of its negative
connotations.

Incidentally,
it is sometimes claimed that formal abstinence education doesn’t work. But this
article
from The Washington Post last year suggests otherwise.

Finally it
should be noted that the pregnancy rate among British teenagers under 16 is six
times the rate for Irish teenagers under 16. The
rate for teenagers aged 18-19 is twice ours. For more detail, and on the
failures of British policy in this regard generally, click here.