I think this is a mildly misleading statement. You can’t measure the amount of sex teenagers are having by how many of them are getting pregnant, particularly if you know they’re using contraception. There is actually a pretty decent chance that they’re having more sex, because they know they can do it with minimal consequences. That’s really the point of sex education: to minimize the negative consequences. Kohler is focusing on the wrong issue.

I agree with C.S. that sex ed doesn’t make students want to have sex: their own bodies do that just fine. I think telling kids not to have sex is about as effective as the telling your dog to stay off the couch: some well-behaved dogs may stay off the couch all the time, but others will do as they’re told when you’re home, but you can’t watch them all the time, and then they’ll do as they please. Sex prevention is a futile effort and a waste of money. Pregnancy and disease prevention, though, are vital concerns where abstinence education is clearly not doing the job. Morality can only be regulated to a certain extent, but what this study really shows is that public health is a lot easier to control with sound public policy.

Sex education doesn’t make teenagers want to have sex any more than math classes make teenagers want to do algebra.

“I do think that there’s strong evidence that comprehensive sex education is more effective at preventing teen pregnancies.
“I think we pretty much debunked the myth that comprehensive sex education causes teenagers to have sex.”

To which Dick Cheney would also reply, “So?”

And Bush would befuddledly ask, “What’s your point?”