PARSE

Read a wonderful op-ed that appeared in today’s edition of the Daily News in response to the Guttmacher Report and in support of comprehensive sex education and the Notice Home and Healthy youth Acts…

“…Preventing teen pregnancy is a complicated business. American teenagers grow up in a sex-saturated popular culture that at the same time discourages open discussion of sexuality. In other parts of the developed world, teenagers are no less likely to be sexually active, but are much less likely to get pregnant or contract sexually transmitted diseases. The difference: information.”

A report from the Guttmacher Institute shows that the  increase in teen pregnancy rates are “based on trends in teens’ contraceptive use.”

“The significant drop in teen pregnancy rates in the 1990s was overwhelmingly the result of more and better use of contraceptives among sexually active teens. However, this decline started to stall out in the early 2000s, at the same time that sex education programs aimed exclusively at promoting abstinence—and prohibited by law from discussing the benefits of contraception—became increasingly widespread and teens’ use of contraceptives declined.” continue reading