Majority of Teens Staying Abstinent

Majority of Teens Staying Abstinent              Young people will listen to the message        that they should wait. Not everyone is having sex in high school, according to a government report.  The 2006-08 National Survey of Family Growth shows that 60 percent of unmarried teens in the U.S. have not had sex, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Mike McManus, president of Marriage Savers, said it proves young people will listen to the message that they should wait. "Those who remain chaste have much lower divorce rates than those who are sexually active," he said.  "The sexually active are about two-thirds more likely to divorce than those who are chaste." Paul Birch, director of the Institute for Research and Evaluation, said the survey numbers are encouraging, especially in a culture where teens are bombarded with the message that sex is the norm. "The truth is that there's really no social, scientific evidence that I'm aware of," he said, "that exclusively demonstrates that having sex is a healthy behavior for youth to be doing at this stage in their life." Contact: Roger Greer Source: CitizenLink Publish Date: June 3, 2010 Link to this article. Send this article to a friend.