You're listening to the micro version of the Savage Lovecast, www.com.

If you're stuck in a relationship quandary, or if you're looking for sexual harmony,

well, there's nothing you can't ask on the Savage Lovecast.

We were seeing a lot of headlines like these by late 2016 and into early 2017.

Pregnancy birth and abortion rates in U.S. adolescents hit historic lows, American Sexual Health Association.

Teen abortion pregnancy rates reach historic lows, the hill. U.S. abortion rates fall to lowest levels since Roe v. Wade, National

Public Radio. Look at the credit for plummeting teen pregnancy and abortion rates, increased access to

contraception, and very importantly, more federal dollars

going to comprehensive sex education programs and fewer federal dollars should have been zero,

but a whole lot fewer, going to abstinence-only sex education programs.

It took a while to get there.

It was years before the Obama administration began living up to the

promise Obama made during his first inaugural address to restore science to its rightful place,

at least where sex ed was concerned. But the science was settled and clear for years. We'd known

since early in the George W. Bush administration that abstinence-only sex education programs or sex

miseducation programs were not only ineffectual, but they backfired.

They made it worse. They drove up the abortion rate.

Kids who'd had abstinence-only sex mis-ed programs didn't wait until they were married to start

having that one man, one woman for life sex that abstinence educators presented as the only option.

At best, they delayed becoming sexually active for about six months.

And while that sounds good, I guess, when these kids became sexually active, the kids who'd had abstinence-only sex ed only,

they were less likely to use birth control or condoms since they'd been told in abstinence-only sex ed only, they were less likely to use birth control or condoms since they'd

...