Letters to the Editor
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If abstinence-only programs
are what has caused this, can they please call the anti-smoking campaign, the anti-obesity folks, and those fine people who are trying to get Americans to consider the environment in their lifestyle choices, and tell them how they managed to be so darn effective in their message?
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access to birth control as well as knowledge
One loses information about how to get birth control as well as how to use it when one doesn't have comprehensive sex ed. When I was a teen free condoms were everywhere but now I couldn't tell you where to go to get one. Plus there was the contraceptive sponge - no prescription required.
Additionally, I think it's dangerous to give 18 and 19 year olds more credit than they deserve. Girls might know a condom protects against pregnancy but they might also think the rhythm method works. 19 is very young and foolish. Boys who might be scared into condom use through information on STD prevention might be more resistant to their girlfriend's request based only on pregnancy.
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To Anonymous
You're not making any sense at all. The problem with abstinence-only education isn't the abstinence, it's the only. It's a deliberate failure to educate. The link to unprotected sex has nothing to do with actually pushing a message, successfully or otherwise.
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Father absence
Father absence is linked to high rates of teen pregnancy. Couple denigration of fathers in the black community with societal acceptance and admiration for single mothers overall, and no one should be surprised at this data.
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umm...
a 3% increase is clearly significant (in a statistical sense), is the drop really significant? What's the P-value on these (I didn't actually read the article)?
If the abstanence programs started around the time bush took office, about five years ago, the oldest group (the most sexually active anyway) would have no 'other' education programs... In recent years the 'oldest' group would have had 'Clintonian' sex-ed. My guess is, the rates will stay the same until about 5 years after Obama gets in the whitehouse.
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Why do so many black teens get pregnant?
My guess is because they want to. I saw a pregnant black teenager leading a segment of our local Christmas parade Saturday. She looked proud and happy and probably has the baby's name picked out already.
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There could be a lot of things going on
I doubt that not knowing how to use a condom is one of them. I think PP is pushing the abstinence-only "education" button because it makes an easier subject line and they know they will get more donors that way. But the issue is more complicated. Diversion of funds into religiously motivated propaganda (I refuse to dignify it by calling it "education") has occurred in concert with several other factors that add up to a systematic push by the Bush administration to reduce access to birth control and abortion.
I suspect there are some ancillary factors as well: economic prosperity results in fewer "social ills" of all sorts, and a larger and larger group of Americans do not enjoy economic prosperity. Also, my generation of teens saw the discovery of AIDS unfold for several months on the TV news. We got the message that unprotected sex can KILL YOU. For many different reasons, kids do not seem to be hearing this message anymore. It's time they started again.
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imprecise language
The article says there's a rise in the teen birthrate. The header says, twice, there's a rise in teen PREGNANCY. Which is it? The distinction is an important one.
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I work in public health data analysis
Firts, the difficulty in obtaining abortions doesn't cause an increase in teen pregnancies, just an increase in teen births. The teen pregnancy rate is calculated by taking all the births to teens, plus all the abortions to teens, plus an estimated 20 percent more to account for miscarriages, and dividing my all girls 15-19, and then multiplying by 1000. So access to abortions isn't a factor.
Now as for abstinence only education, it is completely consistent with research that abstinence only programs conducted a few years ago (this has been going on, publicly funded, for several years) should result in preganancies among older teens, 18-19. The resear5ch shows that the abstinence effect lasts for a short period, maybe a few days to a couple years from the time of the class of abstinence pledge, but then, when they finally do have sex, they are less like3ly to use condoms, not because they've never heard of them or can't learn how to use them, but because they've been preached to (word choice intentional, many publicly funded programs are church-based, sorry, we say faith based now, faith as in take it on faith that this is going to be effective) that condoms don't work very well, using outright phoney data. So, after the good boys and girls have been practicing abstinence (fondling, oral sex, anything but vaginal intercourse for a few months) and they proceed to baby-making, they're less likely to have a condom handy at the moment of passion. Voila!
If you still believe in abstinence-only "sex ed," you probably also believe that we went to iraq because of 9-11 or WMDs, and you believe God planted the dinosaurs and Noah's flood created the Grand Canyon 6000 years ago. It's all part of the same package.
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AIDS
For at least 15 years (about 1985 - about 2000), the fear of AIDS caused huge public awareness about condom use. Condoms were regularly discussed in media, in public service announcements, on bathroom walls, etc. There is absolutely no way one could have been a teen in the late '80s or early 90s without getting the message that sex without a condom is just plain stupid. Moreover, condoms were available everywhere, and on many school campuses, you could get them free. At my college, you walked into accessible office and they handed them out -- no questions, no fuss. The condom use message was so well ingrained in teens of that era that I had a hard time not using them once I was married and wanted kids. Over the last 10 years, the intensity of the "USE CONDOM" message has diminished significantly. If condom use among teens diminishes, pregnancy will increase.
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@Ray Sharp
A ray of sunshine! Thanks for the professional insight.
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She Looked Happy!
> I saw a pregnant black teenager leading a segment
> of our local Christmas parade Saturday. She looked
> proud and happy and probably has the baby's name
> picked out already.
Oh my God no! Certainly pregnant teenagers should frown at all times, and never enjoy themselves. Better yet, hide them in their rooms where society can't see.
The link between your observations and your conclusions ("probably has the baby's name picked out already" - yes, you can tell that from the smile on her face) is a bizarre one.
> If abstinince-only programs are what has caused this,
> can they please call the anti-smoking campaign,
> the anti-obesity folks, and those fine people who are
> trying to get Americans to consider the environment in
> their lifestyle choices, and tell them how they managed
> to be so darn effective in their message?
I was going to refute this, but then I realized it was a non sequiter.