Il modello dell’astinenza

Hannah Kiefer ha 20 anni ed è Miss Virginia 2007 (Miss Virginia Winner Promotes Abstinence in Face of Abortion Controversies, LifeNews, 16 agosto 2007).
Vuole essere un modello per i giovani e consiglia loro di aspettare fino al matrimonio: l’astinenza è la scelta migliore, secondo la reginetta. Ed è il modo giusto di porsi rispetto a Roe vs. Wade.

Young people in today’s world do not have role models and what better way to encourage teens to make right decisions than to live as an example of someone not far from their age who has set goals and obtained them […]
Abstaining from those downfalls allows a young person to empower themselves to graduate and go on to college for a better a future […]
I volunteer for a nonprofit organization based in Roanoke called Abstinence Education of Virginia.

(Se si hanno rapporti sessuali non si riesce a studiare? o a raggiungere i propri obiettivi?).
Non è solo un consiglio veloce e destinato ad essere travolto da paillettes e corone: Hannah è direttrice dell’Abstinence Education of Virginia at Hollins University.
Nelle presentazione si legge:

We focus on helping adolescents make healthy choices about their future and creating a supportive environment for abstinence education across the Commonwealth.

Non funzionano

Nicholas Bakalar, «Adolescence: Abstinence-Only Programs Not Found to Prevent H.I.V.», New York Times, 14 agosto 2007:

Abstinence-only programs for H.I.V. prevention do not work, according to a review of randomized, controlled trials. The analysis, published in the August 4 issue of The British Medical Journal, covered 13 studies involving more than 15,000 young Americans.
Most of the programs were based in schools and directed at children in grades five through eight. One was intended for adults ages 18 to 21. There were various control groups, including some in modified programs and in some cases in no program at all. Compared with those control groups, abstinence-only programs had no significant effect in either decreasing or increasing sexual risk behavior.
Seven of the trials tracked sexually transmitted infections, finding no significant short- or long-term benefit to abstinence-only programs. None of the programs made any significant difference in preventing pregnancy, reducing unprotected sex, or delaying sexual initiation.
“We hope our review encourages a closer look at the empirical research regarding H.I.V. prevention programs,” said Kristen Underhill, the lead author and a research officer at the University of Oxford. “It appears that this evidence base is frequently neglected in debates over abstinence-based prevention.”