Posted on 09/14/2008 11:25:15 AM PDT by wagglebee
The first step in reducing teen pregnancy and abortion is to know the facts. Actually, we know what works. Child Trends and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy published their own data and the corroborating findings of a vast body of scientific research which found that the recipe for delaying sexual activity is parental involvement, good friends, strong faith and participation in church activities. The bottom line, they said, is that parents and friends have tremendous influence on their children, regardless of socio-demographic or economic background and characteristics.
Obviously, many of the nation's adolescents don't have those positive influences in their lives; researchers from the left and the right acknowledge the problems associated with single parent families, father absence, declining church attendance, and lack of community networks.
Adolescent girls facing those challenges in their personal lives are particularly vulnerable. Only 1.7 percent of teenage males were fathers in 2002; that means the vast majority of fathers of the babies born to teen mothers are age 20 or older. There are far more sexually experienced girls than there are girls who are sexually active - which probably means that the girls' sexual initiations were not likely precipitated by mutual passion and instead involved drugs and/or alcohol. So, it is not surprising that fully 63 percent of teens regret early sexual activity and wish that they had waited.
But, there is good news. Teen sexual activity is down, teen births are down, and teen abortions are down. Since their peak, early teen birthrates have declined 45 percent, and older teen birthrates have declined 27 percent. The percentage of sexually experienced teenagers among all races has leveled out, and the decline among non-Hispanic Blacks is one-fifth. Along with these positive changes is an accompanying decline in high-risk sexual behaviors.
Experts from the right and the left stand amazed; many thought they would never see positive progress in these hard-to-reverse trends. None of that is good enough, of course. We lead the developed nations in teen pregnancy and the number of abortions is still far too high.
However, these trend reversals indicate that policy counts. For the well-being of the nation's teens, we must support those policies that work and discontinue those policies that are counterproductive.
Two actions are essential:
Supporting Abstinence Programs - All the documented positive trends coexist with the increased sophistication and more widespread adoption of abstinence education in the public schools and in community programs. Those who critique abstinence programs as too simplistic and unrealistic don't understand the peer and societal pressures that teenage girls face, nor do they understand the depth and breadth of today's abstinence training. The integration of character development and goal-setting programs, along with the training in how to say "no" and the building of social networks among teenagers, are essential aspects of the success of abstinence education.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that the number of sexually active teens has declined from 54 to 46 percent and that a majority of teens said that abstinence education was an important factor in their decision to abstain from sex. Other extensive studies by the Adolescent and Family Health journal credit abstinence for a 67 percent decline in teen pregnancies. A study by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health reflected a 40 percent lower likelihood of pregnancy for girls taking virginity pledges.
Continuing Welfare Reform - During the era of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) entitlement, teen birth rates went up right along with the various states' welfare recipiency rate. When Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced AFDC, unwed teen birth rates went down, as did child poverty rates. Sadly, some states are now by-passing the time limits of TANF by moving those recipients who have used up their TANF eligibility from the federally-funded TANF program to state-funded programs - a move that is reinstituting welfare entitlements, damaging the effectiveness of Welfare Reform (and by extension efforts to hold down or reduce teen birthrates) and lessening the incentives that helped reduce the welfare caseload by 60 percent. If this practice continues, we may expect to see a reversal of the downward trend in teen birthrates and a return to the subsidization of out-of-wedlock childbearing that we saw before TANF's time-limits were imposed.
It is past time for responsible adults in our culture - parents, teachers, community and religious leaders, and pastors - to reach out with the truth to those vulnerable young people who lack parental involvement, faith, and good friends in their everyday lives. "Safe sex" messages mislead these teens; the best choice for all teens is to remain abstinent until marriage and to be faithful in marriage. Those choices lead to the greatest well-being in life. It is unfair that our most vulnerable teens are the ones who are not given the full truth.
Very well said.
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One thing you’ll notice from the left when discussing this subject -
sexual intercourse is a GIVEN in their worldview.
They don’t seem to fathom that it’s something once can choose NOT to do.
It must be from the evolutionary secularist mindset, where we have no more control of our urges than monkeys.
Just place it between your knees. =o)
Ah! But is must be a St Joseph’s aspirin!
This is the same uncivilized mindset that tells them that it's acceptable to KILL anyone who they consider inconvenient.
I read somewhere yesterday that the condoms Planned Parenthood hands out are rejects prone to failure.
It nearly sickens me that this could actually be true.
I have two daughters. I tell them that the responsibility is theirs. Keep your legs shut until you have a ring on your finger.
Period.
There are lots of fun things to do besides intercourse. I was a virgin (Catholic) for 34 years. It can be done.
Your son, with the example by his father would have to get past my girls’ former Marine Daddy!!!!
ya, I’ve heard the joke that the perfect contraceptive is something the girl holds between her knees.
I hope more people come to the conclusion that our young people don’t need more pills and condoms, they need values and the concept of right and wrong.
Yep, and it's Consumer Reports that is saying it so they can't exactly claim "right wing bias" or similar nonsense.
Planned Barrenhood obviously realizes that free condoms that work will only cut down on their "core" business.
No, it's worse than that. You're not a healthy individual if you choose to wait.
Congrats on your staying true to your values.
I hope you mean that fun things to do besides intercourse are wholesome activities. Because the PP crowd sometimes talks about “outercourse” alternatives, which is mainly mutual masturbation from what I infer. They talk about how to satisfy a partner aside from intercourse. To me that sounds like just tempting each other more towards actual intercourse, if you are going to do “outercourse”.
There is a disturbing trend in the education system that tries to teach kids that there is no "right or wrong", no "good or evil", just different. I've challenged professors on this, and they tend to start the tap dancing. They just expect everyone to take what they say as gospel, while telling you not to take what others (parents, pastors, etc.) say as gospel.
Just more liberal inconsistency. So open minded their brains fell out.
When being a “Woman” is descibed by Hollywood and leftists.
Being like Paris, Britney, and Lindsay Lohan is a modern Woman. YEAH RIGHT. No accepting views for no reason but to be popular is the thing to do.
Since when is Femanizm owned by the left? What, woman can only fit one groups’s views? Sarah Palin is what I would think of as an accomplished Woman not Lindsay Lohan.
If you think an accomplishment is Being able to define yourself and Sarah Palin has.
Sarah is Educated had Jobs that were difficult leading a city then state.
All while being a MOM and WIFE not becuse she is expected to, but WANTS that for her life.
Self confidence isn’t Arrogance. Hubri isn’t having goals and achieving them.
Actually, I was talking about snuggling. Even spooning. Not everything that is fun leads to orgasm. I agree with you fully.
"Parents: Talk to your children. Be honest. Be good role models. Raise them right and the rest of this list might not be married."
"Love your children. Show them affection. Don't shut out your daughters so that they look for 'love' and attention in the wrong form."
"Don't be overly permissive thinking that 'they'll do the right thing'. They need structure and guidance in their lives."
"Don't confuse 'hypocrite' with 'parent'. It doesn't matter what you did when you were their age. If you know now that it was wrong then, they'll know in 20 years that it was wrong now. Why repeat the cycle?"
That's off the top of my head.
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