Teen pregnancy and birth rates can be a tricky subject. Maybe it’s just me but parents want to be involved in the type of sexual education their kids get but passively rely on schools and public health initiatives to actually do the teaching. This has led to battles between abstinence only and comprehensive sex ed. Put 2,000 kids in a school with a single sex ed option and watch the parents come out of the woodwork. The big three issues of birth control methods, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and pregnancy stand as polarizing subjects. Some parents decry the teaching of these issues because it will encourage early sexual encounters, others will say that the coverage of these subjects need to be open and thorough. I firmly believe that all three of these subjects should be taught to kiddos starting at an age that precedes the mean onset of sexual activity, mostly because sexuality and misinformation is hard to hide in our uber-accessible internet society. It used to be that Playboy was behind the counter, but now sexual imagery is touted everywhere from the Disney Channel to the vast expanses of the internet.
Using self survey data a team from Columbia University set out to determine how sexual activity and pregnancy risk have correlated since the survey began in 1991. As is reported in vast amounts of the literature the sexual activity stayed very stable throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s except in black teens where there was a significant drop in the sex rate.
This means that the rate of pregnancies for high school kids should fluctuates based on how well they use contraceptives since the amount of sex isn’t changing to a large amount. So how have our kids been doing? (more…)
Uncommon Dissent 