Letter: See for yourself

Editor, Daily News:

Re: Mary Stuller's May 29 letter.

In February I presented a Laureate dissertation favoring comprehensive sexuality education as opposed to the abstinence-only approach.

While researching this topic I learned a few key things about abstinence and abstinence education.

Continuous abstinence is 100 percent effective in preventing unwanted pregnancy. However, the percentage of teenagers who continue an abstinent lifestyle after an abstinence-only program is extremely low.

Research from the Alan Guttmacher Institute has found that there have never been any "methodologically sound studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of curricula that teach abstinence ... only."

There have never been any legitimate studies proving abstinence-only education is effective at all; in fact, teaching abstinence-only education can be dangerous.

According to Dr. S.P. Hertweck, a pediatric obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of Louisville, "Teaching abstinence but not birth control makes it more likely that once teenagers initiate sexual activity they will have unsafe sex and contract sexually transmitted diseases."

Abstinence is the best form of birth control. However, the problem is that the majority of teenagers will not remain abstinent, and that is why it is crucial to provide teenagers with every bit of information we can.

Planned Parenthood is far from anti-abstinence, and even promotes abstinence as the safest form of birth control. Do not let misinformed people skew the positive impact that programs such as Planned Parenthood have on teenagers everywhere.

I've posted the entire dissertation at http://nancyrosespector.blogspot.com .

Nancy Rose Spector , Marco Island, Lely High School graduate, 2006