AMID ALL THE ANGUISH, CONFUSION AND MIXED SIGNALS SURrounding teenage sexuality, the simplicity of one group's message is striking: sex outside marriage is just plain wrong. To instruct children in the mechanics of birth control or abortion, it argues, is to lead them down the path of self- destruction. That's the philosophy of the abstinence-only movement, a coalition of conservative parents, teachers and religious groups that, in the absence of any national sex-education consensus, has been remarkably successful in having its approach adopted as the official curriculum in schools across the U.S.
But is it the best approach? Its adherents claim...