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From Rachel Farris (via AlterNet):
Now, while it's true Texas has the 3rd highest teen birth rate in the country and also true that a 2005 study found teens in Texas were actually having more sex after undergoing an abstinence-only program, Rick Perry still stands by the practice. Why? Not because there are actually any studies backing him up but "from my own personal life," Perry told the Texas Tribune's Evan Smith in an interview earlier this year. Comforting, isn't it? Rather than President Perry making decisions based on studies and figures, the free world will instead hinge on the regularity of his wife's cycles.
Now isn't that terrible — that public officials and Presidential candidates like Governor Perry can insult science and established fact by vaguely appealing to their own unverified "personal experience." Governor Perry insists that abstinence-only works…but his one supportive data point is (presumably) his wife's cycles.
Watch Perry's interview with the Texas Tribune's Evan Smith (exact exchange: pressed to cite any statistic that backs up abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, Perry replies: "I can tell you from my own personal life, abstinence works."):
