The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new report acknowledging that abstinence was responsible for 53 percent of the decline in the teen pregnancy rate... 

{For more information about abstinence & virginity pledge research, go to www.heritage.org. For the study, "The Harmful Effects of Early Sexual Activity and Multiple Sexual Partners Among Women: A Book of Charts", click here.}

Leslee Unruh, president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse: “If we do not speak to adolescents at home and in the schools about abstinence being the best option in their lives, they won’t know to abstain. When abstinence is taught and practiced, it works every single time.”  The benefits of adolescent abstinence reach far beyond teen pregnancy prevention, according to a report released in June by The Heritage Foundation. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the report found students who make a one-time virginity pledge had “substantially improved life outcomes.” Those who took a virginity pledge were less likely to experience a teen pregnancy, less likely to be sexually active in high school and during young adulthood, less likely to have an out-of-wedlock or teen birth, less likely to engage in unprotected sex, will have fewer sexual partners, and are more likely to marry. Previous reports have also found that abstinent teens are less likely to attempt suicide, less likely to be depressed, less likely to live in poverty and more likely experience stable, happy marriage than sexually active teens.  “Abstinence until marriage offers social, psychological, and physical health benefits that condoms and contraception can not match,” continued Unruh. “Currently contraception education, family planning, and condom-based HIV/AIDS prevention are funded $12 to every $1 for abstinence education. Yet, abstinence works! Congress should continue to increase the amount allocated for abstinence education to match President Bush’s request and to make a step toward leveling the playing field.” [21Jul04, “Can Changes in Sexual Behaviors Among High School Students Explain the Decline in Teen Pregnancy Rates in the 1990s?" Journal of Adolescent Health, v,35, issue 2; 21JUL04, National Abstinence Clearinghouse Press Release] 
Are sex-ed "medical-accuracy" laws telling the truth—or subverting public school abstinence efforts? With new research touting the public-health benefits of abstinence education, the question is crucial. Memo to teen-sex advocates: Women who pledge to remain abstinent until marriage are about 40 percent less likely to have a child out of wedlock [National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a 10-year study of 12,000 teens, and analyzed by the Heritage Foundation].

[May report, Heritage Fdn researcher Robert Rector] Making a public or written abstinence pledge—the kind encouraged in a number of abstinence education curricula —can reduce teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock childbearing. [World, Lynn Vincent, 07/17/04]