Teen Pregnancy

The other days discussion about teen pregnancy made me do some more definitive research because sexual education is something I feel really strongly about.  I get really upset when I hear about teen pregnancies because my entire life I've been surrounded by friends and family that have been directly affected by teen pregnancy.  I went to a public high school and we had a high incidence of teen pregnancy which I strongly believe was partly due to the lack-luster sexual education program. My graduating year we had 75 pregnant women (some of these women were not originally in our class but were graduating early/late).  Our program health education class and the schools official policy was to teach abstinence, which infuriated me considering how much of a continuing issue it was at my school.  The health class did briefly go over sexual education and contraceptives, but no further information of where to get said contraceptives was involved, or why those contraceptives are really important. 

I was in a journalism class my junior year, and one of the articles I wrote about dealt with the flawed way our school handled sex education. I basically went around the school trying to find any person who would talk to me about resources for sexual health. I went in boys and girls bathrooms making sure there were no condom dispensaries there, I talked to the health teachers individually and they provided me with things like "the clinic downtown" "planned parenthood" and some were more helpful than others with exact locations of where to find this, but they made it clear that they were not supposed to be providing this information to me.  I went to the school nurse, asking if there was a way to get condoms or birth control through school (which in return got me a disgusted look as though I was some sexual deviant or pervert for asking) and she replied that there's nothing that the school provides and no information about where to get them her response was to ask a doctor or search the internet and the school's official policy was abstinence and that's what we should follow.

This idea of abstinence is antiquated and ridiculous, with almost 330,000 babies born to teen moms between the ages of 15-19 a year, and with 47% of high school students being sexually active.  I'm not fully blaming schools for high pregnancy rates because access to public libraries, school libraries, and homes are almost always equipped with internet access and many reliable websites provide accurate information about sex and how to prevent pregnancy and where to find clinics and places that off the cheapest birth control.  Although adolescents can't always be entrusted to go searching for information about how to be responsible(especially if they're embarrassed or feel ashamed of their sexual desires), and I have to wonder why schools think it's their responsibility to teach them not to drink and drive because it can ruin their chances of living normal lives and getting into college when unprotected sex can have similar lifelong consequences. With 47% of high school students being sexually active, only 60% of these students use condoms the last time they had intercourse, with only 9% using two forms of contraception. Teen pregnancy rates in the united states are among the highest even now at 31.3 per 1000 women between 15-19 according to 2011 data, while other countries like the Netherlands have 5 per 1000, Sweden 7 per 1000, Norway 11 per 1000, Canada 16 per 1000, France 6 per 1000, and the United Kingdom with the greatest European birth rate at 25 per 1000. (Note the data available for other countries is slightly older from 2009 instead of 2011 but have seen a continued decrease trend over the last few decades).

Clearly it is foolish to think that teen pregnancy can be prevented 100% of the time, contraceptives fail and accidents happen, but looking at other countries and the approach they have toward sexual education and social attitudes of sexual behavior shows that it can be greatly reduced with the right information and social approach.