The journal Pediatrics just published a study that says that abstinence pledges don’t keep teenagers from having sex.  Well, duh.  Really??  Maybe they all just crossed their fingers behind their backs when they were pledging? 

The study found that:

“Pledgers and matched nonpledgers did notdiffer in premarital sex, sexually transmitted diseases, andanal and oral sex variables. Pledgers had 0.1 fewer past-yearpartners but did not differ in lifetime sexual partners andage of first sex. Fewer pledgers than matched nonpledgers usedbirth control and condoms in the past year and birth controlat last sex.” 

Not only do they not abstain, but according to the abstract, “Five years after the pledge, 82% of pledgers denied having ever pledged.”  (Sort of like admitting you’re a Republican when someone quotes George W. in an argument.  Best to deny the whole thing, rather than admit you signed up for something ridiculous in a moment of emotional persuasion, eh?) 

So what did Fox News do with this piece of scientific, research-based info from which we might actually explore policy that would work?  They combed the planet for the two young people who actually DID manage to keep their vow.  Wow.  Where did they FIND these two? 

(In ten years I’m betting he’ll deny doing the interview as he comes out to The Advocate, and she will be working in a domestic violence shelter admitting that she actually had given him a blow job once but that she didn’t think it counted.) 

 And if those two can keep their pledge, what does that prove to lawmakers?  That one person who makes it home once safely without using a seatbelt is reason enough to stop requiring seat belt laws?  Point please? 

Funny how sometimes we change our minds isn’t it?  Even when we promise not to.   

Well, maybe some of us seem capable of changing them.