No, Skeexix, the early '80s did not have a big AIDS scare. The research team I worked with began working on HIV in late 1984, and at that time heterosexual transmission was considered to be quite the exception and AIDS was still largely known as the "gay plague". It didn't crack the heterosexual awareness bubble until the mid/late-80's (although the CDC had noted females with AIDS in 1983), and then only because a noticeable number of IV drug users and their partners became seropositive. Bear in mind that the ELISA blood screen, which gives many false positives, didn't get licensed until 1985 and the Western follow-up screen wasn't licensed until 1987.

Abstinence indoctrination has never worked. The kids who are put through that tend to become sexually active at earlier ages than the kids who get real sex education. The difference is the abstinence kids don't know how to properly use contraception, so they tend to get pregnant more often and also contract STI's at greater rates.