Hank Campbell

"Sex education is failing to reduce adolescent birthrates in conservative states, according to a new study" begins a somber Livescience piece. Oooh, that's juicy.  We all want to talk about how dumb conservatives are. And if it's a study - and it is, the writer says it right there - they are not injecting any personal bias.

Science media writes more 'conservatives are dumb' pieces than the Democratic National Committee and it's election season in the U.S., so the goofy 'here is why you must vote Democrat' faux-evidence articles are out in force. This one, titled "Sex Education Less Effective in Conservative States" is in the same vein, but a little different.  Most articles that are shamelessly trolling for partisan political pageviews don't debunk themselves but Christopher Wanjek does just that, he just doesn't seem to realize it.  He basically invalidates his entire article, but only way down near the bottom, where maybe five other people will read.

It starts off with a well-known factoid - that teenagers in 'conservative' states, whatever that means, are having more babies - but then claims it is because sex education is a failure in those states due to undermining by religious people and conservative people, who are apparently the same thing to LiveScience.  There are lots of holes in that but let's get to the way it ends first.

...the analysis failed to consider pregnancy rates, which Cavazos-Rehg said are more difficult to obtain than birthrates. Could it be that, despite sex education, girls in both conservative and liberal states are getting pregnant at about the same rate, and that the girls in Arkansas are carrying their babies to term, perhaps as a result of higher religiosity, a lack of access to abortion services, or both?

Ummmm, of course it could.  Now, we know it can't be abortion options. Abortions are allowed by federal law and Plan B One-Step - the 'Morning After' pill - sold 4 million units last year, up from 500,000 in 2004 and has changed neither pregnancy rates nor abortions, despite claims it would.  

So girls in 'liberal' states, whatever that means, are probably getting pregnant the same as 'conservative' ones, they just don't give birth.  How is that a sign that conservatives are misguided dopes undermining sex education once again?  Is abortion really the sign of a superior culture?  It is to Wanjek, who grimly notes

The U.S. adolescent birthrate is by far the highest among industrialized nations. The birthrate among girls ages 15 to 19 was 39.1 per 1,000 teens in this age group in 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available. The rate in Western Europe ranges from about 24 per 1,000 teens in the U.K. (slightly lower than the U.S. white non-Hispanic rate) to four in the Netherlands.

That is a win for Europe?  Why would 'our dumb teenagers get pregnant as much as yours but they abort a lot more' be something any civilized country brags about?  It is obvious that kids are continuing to have sex regardless of sex education so attempting to blame conservatives and religion (if those are interchangeable, why have few in science media noted Pres. Obama says Jesus told him to raise taxes so he is apparently now religious and therefore conservative?) is silly.

They note as circumstantial evidence that New Hampshire, a 'liberal' state, has the lowest birthrate, while Arkansas, a 'conservative' state, has the highest.  Who determined that New Hampshire was so liberal? Gallup polls instead show that New Hampshire is the same overall political makeup as Montana and Indiana - are those also 'liberal' states? Nope.  Hispanics skew the results dramatically - 70.1 births per 1,000 - and there are not many Hispanics in New Hampshire, so is that a secret racist slap at them? I can't make guesses at motivation and call it data, I suppose I would have more pageviews if I did. It still says nothing at all about sex education or conservatives or religious people undermining it - though it is pretty funny to imagine conservatives saying 'screw liberals and their sex education, go get knocked up' to teens but someone must believe it is happening. Again, birthrates tell us nothing about how many kids are having safer sex - or none at all - due to sex education.

The authors of the study concede the whole thing is meaningless. "The effects of sexuality education were constrained by state characteristics and do not independently explain the considerable variations in adolescent birthrates found across states."  Yet variation in birthrates was behind their claim that conservatives undermine sex education.

So the why was this published again?  They acknowledge they have no idea how many pregnancies there were - which is the real metric for evaluating sex education - and why would LiveScience read this study and imply conservatives are to blame that teenagers take sexual risks? In other studies, Cavazos-Rehg says drinking and drug use are to blame.  Are conservatives to blame for that also?

Citation: Patricia A. Cavazos-Rehg, PhD; Melissa J. Krauss, MPH; Edward L. Spitznagel, PhD; Martin Iguchi, PhD; Mario Schootman, PhD; Linda Cottler, PhD; Richard A. Grucza, PhD; Laura Jean Bierut, MD, 'Associations Between Sexuality Education in Schools and Adolescent Birthrates', Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2012;166(2):134-140. doi:10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.657