BOSTON—Katherine Neubecker, 20, is studying economics and pre-med at Harvard. She is a member of the campus pro-life club, she is a faithful Catholic—and she is in the majority.

Neubecker is remaining sexually abstinent until marriage, and that decision places her at the crest of a growing wave of young people choosing chastity over sexual activity.

A new study from the Centers for Disease Control shows a pronounced shift over the last decade: In 1991, 54% of high school teens had engaged in sexual intercourse and 46% had remained abstinent; in 2001 those numbers had exactly reversed. Sexual experience among teens decreased steadily each year and during the last 10 years has dropped 16%. Even in a sex-saturated popular culture, abstinence seems to be winning.

“I believe in practicing abstinence until marriage,” Neubecker said. “I came to that through my faith and the way my parents raised me. I just think that's what God intended, that sex is a privilege but it's not meant to be abused. God meant for it only to happen within marriage in God's Church.”

Having graduated in the single-largest public high school class in the country in 2000 at Plano (Texas) Senior High School, Neubecker was not sheltered from pressures to give in to premature sexual activity. At the time, she said, she thought she and her abstinent friends were in the minority.

And yet the numbers nationally were going her way. The dramatic trend has even shown up on the radar of the mainstream media, especially as it coincides with President Bush's proposal to increase funding for abstinence education and Miss America Erika Harold's public battle with pageant authorities to make abstinence her platform.

Abstinence program developers and speakers said they are pleased with—but not surprised by—the trend.

Terri McLaughlin, who coordinates abstinence presentations for both public and private schools in Dallas, has seen requests for chastity programs in the Catholic schools double since last year. She credits the increase to word-of-mouth about the program, sponsored by the Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas.

Dr. Hanna Klaus, whose Teen Star abstinence course based on fertility awareness has shown measured results in reducing teen sexual activity, said her 20-year-old international program based in Washington, D.C., is growing by word-of-mouth as well.

But McLaughlin said she also sees something unique and uplifting about this generation of teens.

“They're just so different than the kids in the '80s and '90s. They're just very positive people; they want to accomplish a lot; they don't want to get stuck in what their parents got stuck in or their siblings got stuck in,” McLaughlin said.

Abstinence advocates believe there is more than a coincidence between teens' behavior and the fact that abstinence education has come of age in the past 10 years.

The first national study to gauge the effectiveness of abstinence education is due out this spring, said study team member Dr. Joe McIlhaney, president of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, Texas.

“The efforts to encourage young people to remain abstinent didn't really start until the late 1980s,” McIlhaney said, noting that federal funding for abstinence education began in 1996. “It's reasonable to assume that an emphasis on abstinence has had some impact.”

But Mike McGee, Planned Parenthood Federation of America's vice president for education, said the economy—not abstinence education—is the reason for increased abstinence.

“Historically, as you look at teenage employment, [you see] that when kids have some hope for educational and/or economic attainment they often are engaged in things other than risky behaviors,” he said.

McIlhaney disagreed.

“You look at the '30s, and there's no evidence that there was an incredible amount of promiscuity. The black community certainly was not as well off in the '50s and '60s, but at that time only 22% of children were born out of wedlock; today over 70% are,” he said.

Sarah Brown, executive director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy, said she is being asked “all the time” about the reasons for the trend. While she would credit more abstinence education, she also credits other types of sex education, economic prosperity and AIDS awareness.

“My view is that everybody should take a bow. I tell people, ‘Whatever you're doing, keep doing it,’” she said. “The notion that abstinence is an important idea and the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and disease—this has gotten out into the ether. There is [also] no question that fear of AIDS has finally penetrated the minds of young people. Boys will tell you that.”

Chastity-Minded Parents?

While teens are more pro-abstinence, their parents are not, according to other studies.

The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States has released a national poll of lower-income parents indicating that a vast majority want their children to receive not only abstinence education but also information on prevention of pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

“This generation of parents today are the kind of people who think, ‘The kids are going to do it anyway,’” McLaughlin said.

But McIlhaney said parents would answer the questions differently if they knew that the “comprehensive” sex education programs have not been shown to actually reduce risks.

“When parents are told that they need to bring in the sex ed programs, they assume that if the kids are exposed to those programs their kids will not get pregnant, they will not get a disease, and they will not be sexually active,” he said. “There is not one of their programs that has been done in schools that has ever been measured for lowering pregnancy rates or STD rates.”

McGee of Planned Parenthood said abstinence-only education has its own risks because it does not prepare teens to protect themselves from disease if they do become sexually active.

McLaughlin argued that a “don't do it, but if you do” message to students would never be accepted with any other social concern.

“You would never, ever hear somebody say [to students], ‘Doing drugs is wrong; but since you're going to do it anyway, I'm going to provide you with a clean needle,’” she said. “Kids are not just going to ‘do it anyway.’ They need to be told that having sex is not the expected norm.”

Ellen Rossini writes from

Richardson, Texas.