Credit balanced education for declining abortion, teen-pregnancy rates
Sunday, June 1, 2008 11:31 PM PDT
Printable version
E-mail this articleDaily News editorial
Here’s news citizens on both sides of abortion debate can applaud: The number of abortions nationwide declined by 24 percent between 1990 and 2004. according to a report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The decline has been steady; in no single year during that period did the abortion rate increase. The decrease was most dramatic in teenagers. The abortion rate declined by 55 percent among 15- to 17-year-old girls and 44 percent among 18- to 19-year-old girls.
Significantly, there was no corresponding increase in live births during this time period. The CDCP reports that the nation’s birth rate fell 6 percent from 1990 to 2004, according to Baltimore Sun writer Jonathan Bor. The teenage birth rate fell by 35 percent. Clearly, more teens are exercising better judgment — whether it be to abstain from sexual activity or to use contraceptives. Surveys on sexual behavior by the federal Center for Health Statistics documented a 51 percent decline in sexual activity among teenagers 15 to 19 years of age between 1995 and 2002. Additionally, an agency demographer, Joyce C. Abma, told Bor that there have been “significant improvements” among teenagers in the use of contraceptives since the mid-’90s.
The key here would seem to be education. A solid sex education curriculum enables teens to make better choices. We refer to the sort of balanced curriculum that the Kelso School Board adopted this school year — one that encourages abstinence but also offers students information on how to guard against unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Too often in recent years ideology, rather than science, has guided the development of sex education programs. It has dictated a so-called “abstinence-only” curriculum that excludes information on contraceptives. This approach to sex education, always suspect, was thoroughly discredited by a decade-long federal study completed last year. That study asked one question: Do abstinence-only sex education courses result in more students abstaining from or, at least, delaying sexual activity? The answer was an unambiguous “no.” Students who attended abstinence-only classes were just as likely to have sex, and at the same age, as their peers who did not receive abstinence-only instruction.
The message in these encouraging federal statistics on abortion and teen birth rates is that a balanced sex education curriculum is best. Encourage abstinence, by all means. But, at the same time, instruct students in birth control and ways to protect themselves against STDs.
Past Month's Most Commented Stories