Thursday, March 13, 2008
Editorial: Abstinence works only if practiced
Abstinence-only education is less helpful than chastity belts in protecting teens from disease.
From the RoundTable blog
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Tuesday reported that one of every four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. The ratio is far worse for black girls: Nearly half were infected with diseases that can lead to cervical cancer and infertility.
Because this study is the first of its kind by the CDC, there really is no way to state with authority that the number of teens with STDs is higher or lower since the Bush administration tied federal sex education funds to abstinence-only curricula.
Obviously, though, many teens ignore the narrowly focused message. When 26 percent of adolescent American girls are infected with STDs, it would be foolish to pretend they caught it off a toilet seat. Or that each of the 74 percent of girls who aren't infected is a virgin. Or that teenage boys aren't also unknowingly infected with disease-causing microbes like HPV and chlamydia that they'll gift to others.
CDC researchers called their findings "alarming." That they are. But they certainly aren't surprising. After a decade of decline in teen sex, since 2001 and the ideologically driven push for abstinence-only education, the number of teens having sex is on the rise. So, too, are teen birth rates.
At least Virginia is no longer subscribing to this unhealthy program. Last fall, Gov. Tim Kaine used the state budget crunch to eliminate matching funds for a state-sponsored abstinence-only program.
At least 13 other states have smartened up as well. But as the CDC discovered, schools and homes aren't the only institutions meriting incomplete marks for sex education. Clinics and doctors fail as well to fully counsel teens.
The CDC found that while the majority of sexually active young women (82 percent) receive contraceptive or STD/HIV services, only 39 percent receive both. Further, only 38 percent who reported receiving contraceptive services for unprotected sex also received counseling, testing or treatment for STDs.
Sex education should teach children how to prevent becoming pregnant before they're ready to be parents and how to stay healthy so they can be parents when they are ready.
