What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[FatAndFaithless]

I think there's a miscommunication on this marriage-sex thing.  

Abstinence is an effective way of preventing pregnancies, yes.  Just like staying away from all water is an effective way to prevent drowning.  Not engaging in the activity by definition is a way to avoid the possible results of said activity.

The problem is that in the southern US, abstinence is preached as the only way to prevent pregnancies, and no other possible ways are taught, discussed, or disseminated to the young people of these regions.  That is what 'abstinence only' education is.  The problem, is that young people are, well, young people, and sex is one of our most powerful natural urges and needs.  People have sex.  It's just a fact.  It's going to happen whether you think it's immoral or not.  The problem is that when young people have sex in thse regions, they have absolutely no idea about how to use any sort of contraceptives or even what options are available due to their utterly restrictive sex education.  This leads to an extremely predictable (as shown in the map) trend of teen pregnancies, unwanted pregnancies, and pregnancies out of wedlock in the regions that stick to abstinence only education.

Is not having a sex a way to avoid the results of having sex? Of course.  But teaching young people who are exploring their emerging sexuality that abstinence is the only possible way to prevent pregnancies is both dishonest and massively ineffective.  People are going to have sex.  It's far more responsible to educate them about their options to make it as safe as possible than to stick your fingers in your ears and preach abstinence-only.  (Not saying that's what you do, CL, but that's what the schools do in the South)

Yes, I agree.

If he wants to say that teaching abstinence only in public schools does not help prevent pregnancy, that is fine. I already said I agree.

Saying abstinence itself doesn't work, though, is just not accurate.

My point was that the Church teaches to save sex for marriage. If this was actually followed, there would be a lot less pregnancy.

But your church is also against most (all?) forms of contraception. You have a doctrine that is demonstrably harmful to human wellbeing. Why push it as the only choice when we have mountains of data that there are far more viable alternatives?