To learn more about why Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage curricula are misleading and inaccurate, visit the SIECUS website or read the recent reports from the Society of Adolescent Medicine detailing their position on abstinence-only sexuality education and adolescent HIV education and prevention.

To summarize, Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage curricula are poor substitutes for comprehensive sexuality education because they:

• Offer one moral choice (Abstinence-only-until-marriage) based on one set of narrow religious values that may or may not be compatible with an individual's upbringing
• Suggest that young people who are not abstinent will experience mental distress and will not be suitable future partners
• Use fear, shame, or guilt as tactics to persuade young people to abstain from sexual behavior as a general rule
• Do not provide young people with factual knowledge about birth control options, sexually transmitted infections, condoms, or other vital health topics
• Purposefully mislead young people with false, inaccurate information about the effectiveness of contraceptive methods and condoms
• Use stereotypical descriptions of male and female behavior which does not promote or demonstrate value for equal treatment or equal responsibility for sexual behavior between boys and girls
• Dismiss gay/lesbian/bisexual young people by connecting sexual orientation with disease and mental health problems
• Lack the cultural and ethnic sensitivity to effectively engage non-Caucasian, non-American, non-Christian students