Guttmacher Report:
Newly released data indicate that the declines in teen sexual activity among high school students largely predated the federal government’s major investment in abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education programs, and provides important new context for the ongoing debate over those expenditures. Despite compelling evidence that abstinence-only programs do not stop – or even delay – teen sex, these programs are currently funded at a level of $176 million annually. In contrast, there is no comparable federal program to support sex education that includes information about both abstinence and contraceptive use, an approach proven effective at promoting both delays in sexual activity and protective behaviors among teens when they do become sexually active.
A very positive development tracked by the America’s Children report was improved condom use. The proportion of high school students who reported using a condom during last sexual intercourse increased consistently between 1991 and 2003, from 46.2% to 63%, and remained at that level between 2003 and 2005. Future gains may be jeopardized by the fact that the proportion of U.S. teens receiving any formal instruction about birth control methods has declined sharply, as a 2006 study by Guttmacher Institute researchers noted. Only 66% of males and 70% of females received formal instruction about birth control in 2002, compared with 81ˆ87% in 1995.
The America’s Children report also highlights that the birthrate for teens aged 15-17 reached a historic low in 2005. While the report does not address the reasons for the decline in teen birthrates, a recent Guttmacher study found that 86% of the decline in the overall U.S. teen pregnancy rate (which includes all pregnancies that end in births, induced abortions or miscarriages) between 1995 and 2002 was the result of improved contraceptive use, while only a small proportion of the decline (14%) can be attributed to teens waiting longer to start having sex.
With elections coming up, we want to ensure that you have the tools to protect a woman’s right to choose and guarantee that we elect pro-choice leaders in 2008. You can help us find out what you care most about, the ways you like to take action, and how you think we’re doing at http://www.prochoiceaction.org.
In the news:
GOOD: OH and MA say “NO!” to federal abstinence-only funding. The governors of Ohio and Massachusetts joined their colleagues in seven other states who are refusing the Bush administration’s dangerous and expensive “abstinence-only” initiatives. They rejected funding for these misleading programs that put teens at risk for sexually transmitted infection and unintended pregnancy.
BAD: OH legislator reintroduces bill to ban abortion in all cases. Encouraged by the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Bush Federal Abortion Ban, an anti-choice state lawmaker in Ohio just reintroduced an abortion ban with the goal of overturning Roe v. Wade.
UGLY: Bush administration’s anti-choice propaganda on government website. The Department of Health and Human Services recently revised its website 4Parents.gov and replaced factual data designed to help parents talk about preventing teen pregnancy with biased and misleading claims about abortion. The website’s content continues a pattern by the Bush administration of manipulating science in order to spread anti-choice propaganda.
HERO of the Month: Rep. Henry Waxman. This month, pro-choice Rep. Henry Waxman from California held a hearing where former Surgeon General Richard Carmona admitted that Bush administration officials censored him on issues related to birth control and “abstinence-only” programs. As chairman of a congressional oversight committee, Rep. Waxman helped uncover Carmona’s story, as well as a host of other instances where Bush’s ideological agenda compromises our nation’s public health. For shedding light on the Bush administration’s attempts to distort science, Rep. Waxman is our Hero of the Month.
ZERO of the Month: Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt and the General Assembly endangered the health of Missouri women by passing House Bill 1055 in the last minutes of the 2007 state legislative session. The bill targets abortion-care providers with new regulations that will make it more difficult for them to provide the full range of reproductive health care, and will abolish the current requirement that sex-education programs in Missouri public school include “the latest medically factual information regarding both the possible side effects and health benefits of all forms of contraception.”