Today’s hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform highlighted the vast preponderance of evidence demonstrating that abstinence-only programs simply do not work.

The U.S. has spent more than $1.5 billion on these programs over the last ten years. This “decade of denial” has left the United States with some of the worst sexual health outcomes in the developed world. One in four U.S. teen girls now has an STD and our national STD rates are exceeded only by those of Romania and the Russian Federation. Our teen birth rate is nine times that of the Netherlands, five times that of France, and nearly three times that of Canada. Teen pregnancy costs the federal government more than $9 billion a year.

So, where do we go from here?

The time has come to shift our national policy on sex education and prevention to a realistic, evidence-based, comprehensive approach that includes information about abstinence, birth control, and condoms.

We need to take three bold steps that will help restore science and common sense to sex education policy and put America on track to becoming a sexually healthy nation.

1. Congress must eliminate abstinence-only programs and fund comprehensive programs that include abstinence and contraception. We challenge the Democratic Leadership and, most notably, Chairman David Obey of the Appropriations Committee, to move in this direction. We must also invest in programs that work. This week, Advocates for Youth released a report - - Science and Success, Second Edition - - citing 26 programs that had been proven to reduce teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections or cause at least two beneficial changes in sexual risk behaviors.
2. Under a new Administration, the CDC should launch a national campaign to combat STDs. We face an epidemic of STDs in our country, and the solution is a nationwide social marketing campaign aimed at sexually active teens and young adults that stresses prevention and condom use every time.
3. Under a new Administration, the Surgeon General should renew the Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior issued in 2001 by Surgeon General Satcher. While that document was “deep sixed” by the Bush administration, a new Surgeon General should initiate a national dialogue on sexual health in this country. America’s norms around sexual behavior are deeply conflicted with shame, fear, and denial competing with openness, pleasure, and prevention. These conflicts lie at the core of many of our failed policies.

There is no excuse for the U.S. to remain at the bottom of the heap when it comes to preventing unintended pregnancy and STDs. The research is there to point us forward. All we need to do is develop the political and cultural will to follow it!

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Advocates for Youth is a national, nonprofit organization that creates programs and supports policies that help young people make safe, responsible decisions about their sexual and reproductive health.