A reader just emailed a pointer to this gem from King County's repository of public health wisdom:
No method of contraception or disease prevention is effective when practiced incorrectly or inconsistently. A 1988 National Survey of Family Growth found abstinence to have a contraceptive failure rate of 26% when not practiced consistently.So non-abstinence can lead to pregnancy. Who knew? Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 15, 2005 02:39 PM | Email This
To clarify for the dense: The contraceptive method under discussion is Not Doin' It.
When one practices Not Doin' It correctly and consistently, one is Abstaining. This is 100% effective.
When one practices Not Doin' It incorrectly, but consistently, one may be actually doing the Rhythm Method.
When one practices Not Doin' It incorrectly, but inconsistently while attempting to be consistent, one is Dodging The Bullet. This is what happens when one attempts the Rhythm Method when one has no rhythm.
When one practices Not Doin' It incorrectly and inconsistently, one is actually Getting Jiggy Wid It, or Knocking Boots, or Getting Your Freak On, or any number of practices whose effectiveness at preventing pregnancy and STDs hovers at the high side of 0%.
This comment has been a public service announcement from the Bringing It Down To The Lowest Common Denominator Committee.
It was so good I had to send it to both James Kilpatrick AND to William Safire (or someone purporting to be William Safire).
Who knew that not makin a booty call could end up with odds fairly close to those when you make a booty call.
Posted by: SnoCo Voter on August 15, 2005 03:45 PMBtw, did you happen to notice the photo at the top. They're all guys. Apparently a take-off on the Village People. Sans shirts, friendly poses etc.
If this is the target demographic, exactly how is abstince/pregnancy an issue?
Posted by: scott158 on August 15, 2005 03:46 PMThe journal article repeats the 26% failure rate number... but it's not for "abstinence ... not practiced consistently", as the King County thing puts it, but "periodic abstinence". Periodic abstinence, according to the government group that did the 1988 study, refers to "temperature rhythm, natural family planning, and calendar rhythm methods" (see page 16, Figure 7, footnote 2).
Somebody was rather clueless at King County Public Health to take a statement about Periodic Abstinence and think that it referred to Abstinence Done Badly. Clueless, or intentionally deceptive in an attempt to encourage sexual activity and condom use. I'm not quite sure which is scarier.
Wow.
Mark
Posted by: Mark Congdon on August 15, 2005 04:38 PM1. If the schools are doing such a mediocre job teaching the basics of reading, writing, etc., what makes you think they'll do a good job teaching sex ed?
2. How come you expect smokers to abstain from smoking, but people can't be expected to abstain from out-of-wedlock sex?
I did not know that. Whoa. Honey! I think I found out where all these kids are coming from!!
Oh, but we all must support (and pay for) the reproductive Right to Choose! . . . even when Making Bad Choices is the leading cause of having to Make Awful Choices requiring Good Choice Making Skills that are obviously lacking.
Posted by: starboardhelm on August 15, 2005 05:39 PMI am shocked! Shocked!
Posted by: JCM on August 15, 2005 08:54 PMHow much did King County pay a Blue Ribbon Committee/Task Force/Turnaround Team/AKA: Friends of Ron... for this gem of information?
Posted by: Deborah on August 15, 2005 08:55 PMAlso, no wonder our education system in Seattle is so out of whack. Look at what they teach. I can only imagine history or english....wait do we still teach english or is that insulting to Muslims or those that speak eBonics or hillbilly?
Does it say what happens when the non-abstinece abstinece doesn't work? Do they say a child could be the result? Or do they just say it's ineffective. Oh darn. It didnt' work oh well. Wait....what's this thing in my belly. What I'm 8 months along, hell I don't want this now I've got to go to the prom, just get rid of it. Thanks.
Posted by: Dengle on August 15, 2005 10:31 PMIt has been suggested that a lack of headaches may be at least partially responsible in situations where an inordinately high "don't mean it" rate is observed... A wooden mallet applied liberally may help alleviate this condition... Come to think of it, a wooden mallet applied to various liberals may prove quire effective.
Posted by: Vexorg on August 16, 2005 01:12 AMI don't know if that was also trying to be punny, but I caught it.
Posted by: SnoCo Voter on August 16, 2005 09:36 AMOf course this was a deliberate presentation of falsehood from King County to support a political agenda.
Posted by: PW on August 16, 2005 12:49 PMLet's sterilize all the Libs and see what the failure rate is!
{Well, *I* think it's a good idea!}
Posted by: Igor on August 17, 2005 10:07 AMAs for why editors, etc. might not have caught it: one other potential definition for a phrase like "abstinence [...] not practiced consistently" could be the likelyhood that two individuals intending to (e.g.) make out or even sleep together but refrain from intercourse, end up having sex anyway. While I don't have any actual statistics for that, it's the sort of thing that somebody could see 26% and think "yeah, that sounds about right for how often that happens" and thus not bother checking the information more closely.
Posted by: John on August 26, 2005 02:08 AM