After 15 years of progress in lowering the rate of teen pregnancy, we’ve taken a step backward, as the teen birth rate rose 3 percent in 2006. The study has abstinence-only and comprehensive sex ed advocates pointing fingers, each side saying the other isn’t cutting it.
The fact is if you don’t have sex, you don’t get pregnant. However, children have been raised in a sex-drenched society where sensation trumps healthy sexuality.
Abstinence-only education may have the best of intentions, but until it finds a louder, more compelling way to reach teens, we need to provide teens with all the information they need to deal with the consequences MTV forgot to mention. Comprehensive sex ed, however, should present abstinence as the best option — it is.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
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