Turning a blind eye

The American public education abstinence-only sex education policy in a word is failing. I should know. As a man of modest youth, 32, with two now teenage children of my own, I vividly remember sitting in my Health-Ed class in high school and laughing at the instruction regarding the proper ways to conduct sexual exploration. Like many of the popular sect of young people in the mid-'90s I had been having sex routinely from the time that I was 16 and in my opinion I knew more about "doing the nasty" than my instructor. The major focus of the curriculum during my high school experience from 1991 – 1995, rightly consisted of getting the word out that AIDS/HIV was serious and if contracted it would kill you. But, simply telling teens that "sex is bad" or that if you have unprotected sex and get AIDS you will die is not enough to mute the raging hormones of teens for more than a minute or two. Furthermore, abstinence only programs, while morally sound; do little to deter teen sex. Comprehensive curriculums that include abstinence, proper contraceptive use and real-world defense mechanisms that teens can use against the "peer-pressure" that they face from the time they wake up until the fall asleep at night. A combined approach in my opinion and a great deal of others, do the most good in deterring teen sex.

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation released a national study on sex education in 2000 that revealed gaps between what parents want and what schools are teaching. The news release regarding the study published in September of the same year said, "Parents look to sex education to provide their children with practical skills that students and teachers report are not consistently covered. More than eight in ten parents say how to use condoms (85%) and other forms of birth control (84%), as well as how to talk about them with partners (88%), should be taught. They also want schools to address real-life issues, such as pressure to have sex (94%) and the emotional consequences of becoming sexually active (94%). Three quarters say abortion (79%) and sexual orientation (76%) should be discussed; most (74%) further specify when issues such as these do come up in the classroom they should be presented in a "balanced" way that presents different views in society." (Kaiser Family Foundation)

In 2006, Science Daily published an article on its website that detailed an American Journal of Public Health report published in January, the same year that scientifically concluded that as a result of improved contraceptive use the U. S. teen pregnancy rate had declined. The site further reported that 86% of the recent decline in U.S. teen pregnancy rates is the result of improved contraceptive use, while a small proportion of the decline (14%) can be attributed to teens waiting longer to start having sex. According to a report by John Santelli, MD, MPH, department chair and professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, "The scientific findings indicate that abstinence promotion, in itself, is insufficient to help adolescents prevent unintended pregnancies." (Science Daily)

Last year Science Daily published another interesting article which detailed the data from a 2002 national survey report that appeared in the Journal of Adolescent Health. The study lead author Pamela Kohler, a program manager at the University of Washington in Seattle said, "It is not harmful to teach teens about birth control in addition to abstinence." Kohler and her team of researchers analyzed the data and "found that one in four teens received abstinence-only education. Nine percent — particularly the poor and those in rural areas — received no sex education at all. The other two-thirds received comprehensive instruction with discussion of birth control. Teens who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to report becoming pregnant or impregnating someone than those who received no sex education. The likelihood of pregnancy was 30 percent lower among those who had abstinence-only education compared to those who received no sex education, but the researchers deemed that number statistically insignificant because few teens fit into the categories that researchers analyzed." (Science Daily)

Reuters.com posted an article this month by Will Dunham in which he reports that the teen birth rate in America rose for the second straight year in 2007 after more than 10 years in decline, due mostly to the fact the abstinence-only sex education programs are not working. One of the many experts that he surveyed for his story was Jennifer Manlove of Child Trends a nonprofit research group. She said, "Two years of increases in the teen birth rate are a wake-up call showing the need to target efforts to help teens delay sexual activity, improve contraceptive use, and delay early and generally unplanned childbearing." (Reuters) I think she is right. Whether politicians, clergy or parents want to admit it or not teen sex is happening more and more. Everyone in America has to do more to help better educate and equip teens regarding sex.

Works Cited:

Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "U.S. Teen Pregnancy Rates Decline As Result Of Improved Contraceptive Use." ScienceDaily 4 December 2006. 10 March 2009 <http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2006/12/061201180530.htm>.

The Center for the Advancement of Health. "Comprehensive Sex Education Might Reduce Teen Pregnancies, Study Suggests." ScienceDaily 20 March 2008. 10 March 2009 <http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/03/080319151225.htm>.

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. "National Study on Sex Education Reveals

Gaps Between What Parents Want and Schools Teach." News Release 26 September 2000. 23 March 2009 <http://www.kff.org/youthhivstds/upload/National-Study-on-Sex-Education-Reveals-Gaps-Between-What-Parents-Want-and-Schools-Teach.pdf>

Dunham, Will. Reuters. "U.S. teen birth rate up again, fewer pre-term babies" 18 March 2009. 23 March 2009<http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews

/idUSTRE52H67H20090318>