{"id":336,"date":"2014-03-08T15:03:26","date_gmt":"2014-03-08T15:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/?p=336"},"modified":"2014-03-08T16:52:24","modified_gmt":"2014-03-08T16:52:24","slug":"iona-one-again-doesnt-research-its-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/2014\/03\/08\/iona-one-again-doesnt-research-its-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Iona, once again, doesn’t research its research."},"content":{"rendered":"

When Pure in Heart visited schools<\/a> with Sellotape in hand to teach abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education they made quite a stir. Mostly due to their usage of the Sellotape to slut-shame any students who may have had premarital sex or multiple partners. Dr. Jacky Jones, formerly of the HSE, wrote a piece in The Irish Times<\/a> stating that,<\/p>\n

All programmes and events delivered by visitors and external agencies must use appropriate, evidence-based methodologies with clear educational outcomes.<\/p>\n

What might these be for abstinence programmes? Students will abstain from sexual activity until marriage? An unachievable objective<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is a vast body of evidence to suggest that\u00a0abstinence-only-until-marriage programmes, of the type Pure in Heart were teaching, are ineffective. In fact, evidence shows that\u00a0abstinence-only-until-marriage programmes lead to an increase in STDs and pregnancy.<\/p>\n

To counter Dr. Jacky Jones, Ben Conroy,<\/a> Irish Catholic columnist and child of Iona Patron Breda O’Brien, cited a study which, according to him, “seems to demonstrate that abstinence programmes can and do work \u2013 if run well.”<\/p>\n

The study was called\u00a0Efficacy of a Theory-Based Abstinence-Only Intervention\u00a0Over 24 Months.<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>It studied 662 African American students with a mean age of 12.2 years over a two year period.\u00a032.6% of the\u00a0abstinence-only participants, compared with 46.6% of those in the control group,\u00a0reported that they had ever had sex two years after completing the programme. So the study seems to support abstinence sex education.<\/p>\n

However, there are some very important factors which Ben failed to highlight. The study did not\u00a0promote abstinence-only-until-marriage, at all.<\/p>\n

\n

[T]he target behavior was abstaining from vaginal, anal, and oral intercourse until a time later in life when the adolescent is more prepared to handle the consequences of sex.<\/p>\n

The intervention did not contain inaccurate information, portray sex in a negative light, or use a moralistic tone. The training and curriculum manual explicitly instructed the facilitators not to disparage the efficacy of condoms or allow the view that condoms are ineffective to go uncorrected.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Jacky Jones was clearly discussing abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education and its ineffectiveness. So\u00a0why would Ben Conroy counter with a study which explicitly doesn’t consider\u00a0abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education? The study was conducted to see if sex can be delayed until a time when students might be more prepared, not to abstain from sex entirely until marriage. In fact the study even states,<\/p>\n

The results of this trial should not be taken to mean that all abstinence-only interventions are efficacious.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Iona really needs to start researching its research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Pure in Heart visited schools with Sellotape in hand to teach abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education they made quite a stir.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[86,45,33,85,87],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-secularism","tag-ben-conroy","tag-david-quinn","tag-iona-institute","tag-pure-in-heart","tag-sellotape"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humanisticas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}