FACTS ABOUT ABSTAINING

Pledgers delay 27 months longer*

Abstainers more likely to graduate from HS, college, make more $** Sources: * Bearman, P., & Bruckner, H. “Promising the future: virginity pledges and first intercourse.” American Journal of Sociology, 106 (4), 859-912, 2001. ** Robert Rector and Kirk Johnson,

“Teen Sexual Abstinence and Academic Achievement,” www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/whitepaper10272005.cfm.Notes:

You’ve heard a lot of information about the physical and emotional damage that comes from uncommitted sex and about how the creators of many of the messages in popular music, TV, movies and the Internet don’t care about your life, and how waiting until marriage benefits your life and increases your happiness.

Did you know that teens who make a promise or a pledge to abstain from sex delay having sex an average of 27 months than teens who don’t make a pledge? Teens who abstain from sex are much more likely to graduate from high school, to graduate from college, and have much higher incomes than teens who don’t abstain. So the time has come for you to make a decision.

You can stand on the fence and let others, the media or your own emotions run your life, or you can decide to make your life successful and happy by making a decision to abstain.