Running head: Abstinence Pledging THIS PDF IS A PREPUBLICATION VERSION OF THE ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY Broken Promises: Abstinence Pledging and Sexual and Reproductive Health

Approximately 12% of girls and young women in the United States pledge abstinence. Yet most break their pledges, engaging in first intercourse before marriage. The extant literature reports few differences between pledge breakers and nonpledgers in sexually transmitted infections and nonmarital pregnancies. The present research maintains that previous studies may have obscured important differences in exposure risk and hypothesizes that female pledge breakers who have higher exposure risk are more likely to experience human papillomavirus (HPV) and nonmarital pregnancies. To test this hypothesis, this study uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, logistic regression, and event history modeling. The results show that, after accounting for differences in exposure risk, pledge breakers have higher risk of HPV and nonmarital pregnancy. As a set, the results are consistent with the argument that pledgers use condoms and contraceptives less consistently and highlight unintended consequences of abstinence promotion. Nonmarital pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) represent significant threats to the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents and young adults. In the United States, approximately 75% of pregnancies among women aged 15–24 are nonmarital; of those, three quarters are unintended (Zolna & Lindberg, 2012). Fifteen-to 24-year-olds also represent half of new sexually transmitted infections, with human papillomavirus (HPV) accounting for more than 70% of new cases (Satterwhite et al., 2013). Given these statistics, identifying individual and institutional factors promoting nonmarital pregnancies and STIs, such as HPV, is an important concern. A key institutional practice in the 1990s and 2000s purportedly targeting nonmarital pregnancies and STIs was the promotion of abstinence from sexual intercourse until marriage. Abstinence-only programming was delivered primarily two forms. First, the delivery of abstinence-only sex education (AOSE) was vastly expanded through $1.5 billion in federal funds during the George W. Bush administration (SIECUS, 2015). A second intervention, promoted by religious and nonprofit groups and AOSE programs, was the use of " virginity pledges " (Bearman & Brückner, 2001). Pledging typically involves public declarations by adolescents to remain abstinent until marriage (Bearman & Brückner 2001; Williams, 2011). Under the Obama administration, abstinence-only programming has been largely displaced in national policy making designed to reduce nonmarital pregnancies and STIs among U.S. teens and young adults (Joseph, 2012), but its use remains widespread at the state and local levels. Currently, 25 states still require that abstinence be stressed in sex education, and 19 states mandate content promoting sexual behavior only within marriages …