Teenage Sex: Just Say 'Wait'
The search is on for new and more effective ways to teach teens about the facts of life
Elders favors the middle road. She told U.S. News that she supports newer hybrid programs that "stress abstinence," particularly for the youngest teens, but believes it is unrealistic to demand abstinence only. She wants to "give kids the tools" to resist peer and societal pressures to have sex and aims to induce a new sense of social values in the young and teach children as early as kindergarten age that they have the right to decide who touches their bodies. "We need to have our kids understand that sex is good but it has to be appropriate," she says. Teens should be taught to make sound decisions about sex if they choose to have it, says Elders--including informed choices about birth control. But, says Family Research Council Director Gary Bauer, that approach sends a mixed message, akin to saying "it's illegal to shoplift, but if you do it, here are some tips on how to avoid getting caught."
Still, a decade of the abstinence-only approach has failed to end the long claim of the United States to the highest teenage pregnancy, abortion and childbirth rates in the West. Each year, 1 million girls under the age of 20--1 in 10--become pregnant; 43 percent of all adolescent girls will have been pregnant at least once by the time they turn 20. Black teens have the highest birthrates, but whites and Hispanics are closing the gap: In the last half of the 1980s, birthrates climbed by 25 percent for Hispanics, 19 percent for whites and 12 percent for blacks. It is clear that the problem cuts across racial, social and economic barriers. But for those who keep their babies, numerous studies have shown that parenthood is likely to lead to a trip down the economic scale into poverty.
The most troubling trend is that the largest jump in sexual activity is among teens under 16. It's not just that 72 percent of all students by their senior year of high school report having had sexual intercourse, but that 40 percent of 15-year-olds report the same, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--compared with just 10 percent of 15-year-olds in 1970. These and even younger children have the highest odds of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. Pregnant girls 16 and under are the most likely to drop out of school, then to deliver the sickest and smallest babies. And nearly 1 in 3 gives birth to a second child within two years.
Who is to blame? Social critics identify a welter of culprits, from media excesses and declining family values to--depending on which side is making the case--easy access to abortion (because it lets teens think sex can be risk-free) or the decline in abortion providers (because it leads to unwanted pregnancies). Even physiological reasons conspire: In the past 100 years, largely owing to improved nutrition, the average age of puberty for girls has dropped from 17 to 14.
There is no denying that the surge in teen pregnancies reflects larger developments in American society. Last year, according to a Census Bureau report released last week, 65 percent of teen births were to unmarried girls, up from 48 percent in 1980. That statistic mirrors America, as the same report showed. Nearly a quarter of unmarried women now become mothers, an increase of 57 percent in the past decade, and the rise has been sharpest among adults--particularly college-educated professionals.
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