Q. Abstinence is fine, but don’t you think they should teach about condoms for those who aren’t going to be pure?

A. When I played college baseball, we were expected not to use steroids. Sure, some athletes do it anyway, but no coach would ever walk into the locker room and say, “We want you all to abstain from using performance enhancing drugs. But since we know some of you will do it anyway, we’ll have a basket of free, clean syringes in the dugout.”

The same goes with the condom. If you had a child who was thinking about sleeping with a person who might have HIV, would you say, “I’d rather you not sleep with that person. But, since I know you’ll probably do it anyway, here’s a condom?” No way would you entrust the life of your child to a thin piece of latex. You would give him or her a clear and uncompromised message of purity.

So, just as you would want the best message to be given to one you love, we should want the same for every person. Every human being is capable of self control, and is able to make smart decisions.

Besides, what if you taught students how to use a condom, and then a young woman came to you in two years, and asked you how she got cervical cancer, despite using a condom every time? What about the teen who gets AIDS even though he was practicing “safe” sex? What do you tell them?

All this talk about “safe” sex is ridiculous. For example, when a teenage girl becomes sexually active, she becomes more likely to become depressed, have more breakups, attempt suicide, and eventually get divorced. Obviously these things don’t happen to every girl, but the sooner she becomes sexually active, the more likely she is to suffer through them. With that in mind, it seems pretty misleading to call sex “safe” because a piece of latex is involved. Promoting safe sex makes as much sense as telling your child to wear a helmet if he’s going to play in traffic.

Lastly, the whole idea that teens are “going to do it anyway” is equivalent to saying that you’re giving up on them. Last weekend, my wife and I spoke at a conference for high school students. After the talk, a girl came up to my wife and dropped something in her hand, saying, “Thanks for the talk. I won’t be needing these anymore.” My wife looked down, and in her hand was a half empty packet of birth control pills. Now, do you think this girl would have been that impacted by our talk if we concluded it by passing out condoms for those who were “gonna do it anyway”?

It is impossible to deliver a convincing abstinence message while promoting condoms. Abstinence educators are not naive about the sexual activity levels of teens. They’re just the ones who know what’s at stake.

from: http://www.chastity.com/chastity/index.php?id=7&entryid=263