New Report Reveals Our Youth May Know Better than Our Government

Just released, The America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being (2007), is one in a series of annual reports reflecting the condition of children in America. And I must say, this report revealed some wonderful numbers when it comes to our teenagers and sex. The teen birth rate has hit a record low! In 2005, there were 21 teens giving birth per every 1000 girls ages 15-17 – this is significantly lower from the 1991 birth rate of 39 births per 1000.

Even greater, it appears that the hard work of groups in making sure that our teenagers are receiving accurate birth control information has seemed to be paying off (no surprise there – I mean, how many times does it need to be proven that programs that only preach abstinence are ineffective when it comes to the sexual behavior of teenagers before the government decides to take a more productive and useful approach on this issue?).

According to this report, although the percentage of high school students engaging in sex has remained constant since 2003, condom use is way, way up; in fact, teenage use of condoms during their last sexual encounter has increased from 46 percent in 1991 to an amazing 63 percent! These numbers speak volumes about what can happen when our young men and women are provided with safe sex education and access to contraception. It is also just another indicator that abstinence sermons are falling on deaf ears. As a side note, the report also mentioned that 18 percent of teens who had sex in the past three months were taking birth control pills. If you add up the numbers, it appears that 81 percent of high-schoolers having sex are using birth control. My praise goes out to all the responsible teenagers out there and to all the pragmatic and realistic people who support and teach comprehensive sex education.

The behavior of our nation’s youth makes me even prouder given they are faced with a government that is still stuck in the dark ages. Just the other day, NARAL Pro-Choice America, announced that their organization has discovered new, politically biased information on a government health website (go figure). It seems that the Department of Health and Human Services has recently switched factual data intended to help parents talk about preventing teen pregnancy on its website, 4Parents.gov, with biased and unproven abortion claims.

"They've done it again. President Bush and his allies are bent on misleading parents and teens," Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America said. "It is outrageous that the department charged with providing Americans objective information about health is disguising unproven political rhetoric as sound science." Keenan goes on to say that the website's content “continues a pattern by the Bush Administration of manipulating science in order to spread anti-choice propaganda.” Sadly, this is not the first time something like this has happened. The Bush Administration was forced to take out medically inaccurate information from the National Institutes of Health's website that falsely linked abortion to breast cancer (an assertion discarded both by the medical community and breast-cancer prevention groups).

So, this new report sheds some hope that maybe, just maybe, today’s youth are thinking and behaving more critically that their government would like to give them credit for. In a time when their President and his Washington cohorts would rather spread ideological myths, inaccurate information, and adhere to ineffective approaches when it come to reproductive heath and choices, the actions of our nation’s teens are sending the message that they are smart enough to not buy into the propaganda their government is trying to sell them on. It’s pretty ironic that today’s youth can realize the benefits of safe sex and contraception, and yet a whole Presidential Aadministration just can’t seem to “get it”.

Condom Use Photo Courtesy of William B. Plowman/Getty Images