Is Planned Parenthood Redefining Abstinence? (The Federalist Thinks So)
by Evan Urquhart
in regards to Tristan Justice for the Federalist, a right wing news and opinion website
The Federalist today has coverage of a sex-ed curriculum created by nonprofit ETR (Education, Training, and Research). Much of what you would expect from a conservative outlet reporting on a queer-friendly sex education effort called “Reducing the Risk” is in here. The phrase “queer centered” is in scare quotes, they mention the youngest age a child who might encounter parts of the curriculum (12), and they hit the Planned Parenthood connection hard, even mentioning that Planned Parenthood provided gender affirming hormones at some affiliated centers.
ETR is a CA based sexual health nonprofit, and (according to the Federalist’s reporting) they’re also an offshoot of Planned Parenthood. The Federalist links to an FAQ style report by Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF), a far right libertarian advocacy group, and seems to have drawn their reporting primarily from this organization’s materials.
Most intruiguingly, however, both the Federalist and the IFF take issue with the ETR curriculum’s definition of abstinence.
This looks to be a misunderstanding by conservative writers of both the meaning and intended purpose of this definition. They seem to think the definition exists to allow some sex acts to still take place under the umbrella of abstinence. Most likely, though, it’s the exact opposite.
Sex educators know young people, especially those from conservative backgrounds, often give themselves permission to engage in some sexual activities, such as oral sex, by telling themselves it doesn’t really count and they’re still abstinent. They do this because they have grown up with a definition of sex as meaning only penis-in-vagina (PIV) intercourse. What seems so straightforard to these right wing writers, that abstinence means “refraining entirely from sex,” is actually not at all clear to teens, especially teens in a culture which defines sex very narrowly, as meaning the full entry of a penis into a vagina.
Without being privy to the internal discussions of ETR it’s impossible to say for sure, but it certainly looks like ETR’s definition for abstinence, “choosing not to do any sexual activity that carries a risk for pregnancy or STD/HIV,” is an attempt to make it clear to young people that abstaining from PIV sex alone won’t protect them from all sexually transmitted diseases, and that in this educational context abstinence means refraining from all sexual activity. They want youth exposed to this curriculum to understand that abstinence is more than the act of saving intercourse for marriage.
Culture war divisions can make it hard for people on opposite sides to understand each other. While I don’t think either IFF or the Federalist are even trying to understand Planned Parenthood or ETR, I also think it’s probably an honest mistake from people trapped within a culture that refuses to have these sorts of frank discussions about the realities of risky adolescent behavior. These writers think they see a conspiracy to redefine abstinence, when in truth eductors are trying to protect their more conservative, religious students from STDs by explaining to them clearly that abstinence means more than doing “everything but intercourse.”