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Depressing Numbers Don't Lie

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By DIVYA KUMAR

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 20, 2008

Jump afterwards."

"Take a really hot shower."

While these nuggets of advice on how to not get pregnant may sound ridiculous - after all, I did find them floating around online discussion boards teenagers frequent - this is what passes for safe sex education for some teenagers.

Too bad these kind of sexual urban legends still offer more advice on contraception than many teenagers get in sex education classes in their schools.

Clearly something is not working.

The Review of General Psychology reports that 70 percent of females and 80 percent of males have premarital sex. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 61 percent of teenagers graduating from high school admit to having had sex.

Yet surprisingly, while the United States does not have the highest rate of sexual activity amongst teenagers, it suffers from the highest teen birth and sexually transmitted disease rates of the world's industrialized countries.

In the 1980s the United States reported having 50 out of every 1,000 teens give birth. In 2000 it reported 84 per 1,000, and while it has been known that half of all reported STDs come from teenagers and adolescents, recently a groundbreaking study found that one in four teens was infected with STDs.

And if we look more closely at the statistics, we might see a trend.

In the 1980s one out of 50 sex education programs in the country preached abstinence-only methods, while in 1999 one in four did. In 2001 all schools wanting federal funding complied with President Bush's Just-Say-No-Policy, a branch of the No Child Left Behind Act.

In a study conducted by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, it was found that many abstinence-only programs were preaching distorted concepts. Students in parts of the country are learning that all gay males are HIV positive or that someone who contracts chlamydia will also develop heart failure. And they are taught girls who get abortions are likely to become sterile and commit suicide.

Practicality, please!

Innocent teenagers shouldn't have to be victims of political shenanigans. From the numbers, we can see that teens are not just saying "no." As a teenager, I know that all words spewing from the mouth of adults are not taken as gospel. With this in mind, the very fundamentals of abstinence-only education is debased.

Here is what abstinence-only education does teach us though: Less than 30 percent of teenagers who become pregnant finish high school.

Few teenage mothers ever graduate with a college degree. According to the National Vital Statistics Reports in 2001, children born to teens are 21 percent more likely to have health problems and 50 percent more likely to suffer through school. The U.S. government spends over $17 billion yearly dealing with teen pregnancies and STDs.

Teens should be taught more practical methods of protection. While it is a school's duty to reflect sound morality and values in its students, that effort shouldn't come at the expense of their basic health and well-being.

Divya Kumar is a sophomore at King High School.

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