The United States ranks first among industrialized nations in teen birth rates. Additionally, 3 million teenagers are infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) each year. The condom campaign has failed to eradicate these problems, and in many cases, has made them worse by giving a false sense of security to sexually active teens. President Bush’s program to fund abstinence-only education is the correct response to the continuing high birthrate among American teens and the growing problem of STDs.

Since the heyday of sex education in the 1970s, advocates of condom promotion have pointed to declining birth rates as evidence of the success of their programs. The decline in birth rates was due to the more than twofold increase in abortions, not the increased use of contraceptives. Ever increasing teen abortion rates — 43 percent of pregnant teens had abortions in 1995 compared with 22 percent in 1983 — continue to mask the failure of “safe sex” programs.

The two most common teen birth control methods, oral contraceptives (such as the Pill) and male condoms, have 12-month failure rates of 7 percent and 14 percent, respectively. Imagine driving a car whose breaks had such a high failure rate! Even with perfect usage every time, the failure rate for condoms hovers around 3 percent.

The claim that condoms make sex “safe” is even more ludicrous concerning STD transmission. Condoms are often touted as reducing the risk of HIV, but even in this task, they are only 85 percent effective with perfect use. The most common STD is actually lesser-known HPV, the cause of genital warts and 99 percent of cervical cancer cases. There is no evidence condoms prevent HPV transmission to women and scant evidence condoms reduce transmission rates to men. Additionally, condoms reduce the risk of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and genital herpes transmission by 50 percent at best. Yet the advocates of “safe sex” programs point to the rising STD epidemic as more evidence that their programs should be continued.

It’s quite the contrary — a new direction is needed to stem the tide of teen pregnancies and STDs. President Bush’s funding for “abstinence-only” sex education is a step in the right direction. For years, contraceptive promoters have insisted abstinence is not realistic for today’s teens because “everybody” is doing it. However, more than 50 percent of high school students have never had sex and more than 30 percent of unmarried females age 15 to 44 haven’t, either.

“Abstinence-only” education programs encourage teens to delay sexual activity until marriage. Obviously, if everyone engaged in sex with only one person, STDs would be practically nonexistent, and if everyone abstained from sex until marriage, there would be no out-of-wedlock pregnancies. President Bush’s program should be given a chance to succeed.