nics may teach sexuality education and may also prescribe and distribute contraceptives with written parental consent; however, no state funds may be used to purchase condoms or contraceptives. These school-based health clinics must maintain records of the number of condoms and other contraceptive devices distributed and prescribed, as well as the number of pregnancies and STDs in the school. This information must remain confidential. Clinics may not give information about abortions or refer students to where they might find such information.
Arkansas does not require parental permission for students to participate in sexuality or HIV/AIDS education nor does it say whether parents or guardians may remove their children from such classes.
Those are just a couple of examples of many you’ll find at the SIECUS website, where you’ll see that states which receive “abstinence-only” funding don’t always limit their sex ed programs to being strictly about abstinence. It varies from state to state, with some of the states doing as Arkansas does by leaving it up to local school officials as to what to teach, while others operate primarily off of state guidelines, which also vary on how far school districts can go in what they teach to young people about sex, and what they should “stress” more: abstinence or an emphasis on ways to have safe sex.
It’s interesting – but not surprising – that The Usual Suspects jumped on the opportunity to blame abstinence-only education after the release of the CDC study results. But what Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and other like-minded ‘progressives’ in her ‘enlightened’ circles count on their supporters not doing is carefully reviewing and understanding the statistics released on Wednesday, and judging by the knee-jerk reactions from the usual corners, she has nothing to worry about on that front.
For example, as I noted earlier, California accepts no Title V funding for abstinence-only programs in the public schools, but as reported yesterday by the LAT, the teen birthrate in California increased 1.6% between 2005 and 2006:
The teen birthrate in California also saw a 1.6% increase in 2006 to 37.8 births per 1,000 teenage girls, according to state figures. Dr. Bonnie Sorensen of the California Department of Public Health said the state accepts no federal money for abstinence-only education.
But I thought the rise in the rate was due solely to abstinence-only education?
Another inconvenient truth to the abstinence-only crowd: Even after the push for more comprehensive abstinence-only education started in 1996, teen birth rates continued to decline in *all* states. This 2002 CDC report, which covers 1991-2000, shows those stats. And remember, all states but California were participating in Title V abstinence-only funding when it started in 1996.
Page 8 of this CDC report on 2002 data states (emphasis added):
Birth rates for teenagers by State are shown for 2002 in tables B and 10. In 2002 State-specific birth rates per 1,000 women aged 15â€“19 years ranged from 20.0 (New Hampshire) to 64.7 (Mississippi). The highest rate reported for 2002 was for the District of Columbia, 69.1. Between 2001 and 2002 teenage birth rates declined in 45 States with significant decreases in 23 States, Puerto Rico, and the Northern Marianas. Other changes between 2001 and 2002 were not statistically significant. Since 1991 teenage birth rates have declined significantly in all States, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Birth rates for teenagers declined by 30 percent or more in 19 States, the District of Columbia, and Guam.
Data for 2004 shows a still declining national birth rate amongst teens, although it’s more modest than in previous years. We saw another national decline in the teen birth rate in 2005, which the CDC described as the “lowest level ever.” (BTW, I couldn’t get the 2003 stats document to open for some reason)
Isn’t it funny how during the first years of the Bush administration everytime we heard about declining birth rates amongst teens that it was in sp