The pregnancy of Bristol Palin, 17-year-old daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is hardly a remarkable event in modern American families. About 750,000 teens--one in 13--become pregnant every year; 80 percent of those pregnancies are unintended.
The negative consequences of so many teen pregnancies are well established. Teen mothers are far less likely to escape poverty. Teens often lack patience, maturity and other parenting skills (as was evident in this summer’s controversial reality television show, “The Baby Borrowers,” which showed teens caring for infants). Babies born to teens are more likely to have lower education attainment and receive poorer health care.
To deal with this significant social problem, the Bush administration’s response has been to pour more than $1.5 billion into abstinence education, which teaches that only abstaining from sexual activity protects young people from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
The abstinence approach is also popular with parents who arrange “purity balls,” where daughters and fathers dine, waltz and listen to abstinence promoters. Then, the daughters look their fathers in the eye and swear to remain virgins until marriage.
In an ideal world, abstinence education and purity balls would be sufficient.
In the real world, the one of raging hormones and a highly sexualized pop culture, they dissuade woefully few teens.
Researchers for the non-partisan Mathematica Policy Research Corp. tracked four abstinence-only programs for four to six years. Their definitive 164-page report can be summed up in four words: These programs aren’t effective.
Numerous studies show that the most successful approach is a combination of sex education and abstinence counseling.
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (Dem., Ill.) supports this balanced policy. Yet, U.S. Sen. John McCain (Rep., Ariz.) and his runningmate, Gov. Palin, both come down on the opposite side of the research.
Sen. McCain has expressed support for President George W. Bush’s policy and Palin, running for governor in 2006, wrote in a questionnaire: “The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.” The Republican Platform, approved at last week’s party convention, calls for “replacing ‘family planning’ programs for teens with increased funding for abstinence education.”
Despite the $1.5 billion spent since 2000 on abstinence education, however, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reported earlier this year that a decade-long decline in the teen birth rate was reversed in 2006.
The “explicit” sex-ed programs, better known as comprehensive sex education, generally promote abstinence or postponing sex but also provide information about contraception and safe sex. Think of it this way: You tell your children not to drink, but you also teach them that if they do, they shouldn’t drive.
That common-sense approach explains the survey results from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy: When parents and teens are asked whether they want more information about abstinence or birth control, teens and parents overwhelmingly choose “both.”
Ideally, Bristol Palin would be able to deal with her pregnancy in private, but now that it’s part of the national conversation, at least it should be a teachable moment.
