As you can expect, the news the CDC reported Wednesday about the teen birth rate rising 3% in 2006, the first time the number has risen since 1991, the usual suspects were all aflutter about how this new information is just “more proof” that “abstinence-only” programs don’t work, while comprehensive sex edcuation programs “do.”
First, here’s a brief history of abstinence-only education funding (links for the numbers you see in brackets are directly on the page itself):
In 1996, Congress signed into law the Personal Responsibility & Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act, or “welfare reform.” Attached was the provision, later set out in Section 510(b) of Title V of the Social Security Act, appropriating $250 million dollars over five years for state initiatives promoting sexual abstinence outside of marriage as the only acceptable standard of behavior for young people.
For the first five years of the initiative, every state but California participated in the program. (California had experimented with its own abstinence-only initiative in the early 1990’s. The program was terminated in February 1996, when evaluation results found the program to be ineffective.) From 1998 to 2003, almost a half a billion dollars in state and federal funds were appropriated to support the Title V initiative.
Keep in mind that information about California, which I’ll refer back to later.
Here was the typical MSM reporting on the news about the 2006 rise in teen birth rates:
ATLANTA (AP) — In a troubling reversal, the nation’s teen birth rate rose for the first time in 15 years, surprising government health officials and reviving the bitter debate about abstinence-only sex education.
The birth rate had been dropping since its peak in 1991, although the decline had slowed in recent years. On Wednesday, government statisticians said it rose 3 percent from 2005 to 2006.
The reason for the increase is not clear, and federal health officials said it might be a one-year statistical blip, not the beginning of a new upward trend.
However, some experts said they have been expecting a jump. They blamed it on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education that doesn’t teach teens how to use condoms and other contraception.
Some key sexually transmitted disease rates have been rising, including syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. The rising teen pregnancy rate is part of the same phenomenon, said Dr. Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health.
“It’s not rocket science,” she said.
At the same time, some research suggests teens are using condoms far more often than they did 15 years ago.
Decreased condom use and increased sexual activity are two likely explanations for the higher teen birth rate. But not all data supports those theories, said John Santelli, a professor of population and family health at Columbia University’s school of public health.
For example, a biannual government survey of high school students found that the percentage of those who said they used a condom the last time they had sex rose to 63 percent in 2005, up from 46 percent in 1991.
What did the pro-sexualizing-of-young-teens organization Planned Parenthood have to say about the news?
The new report offers a state-by-state breakdown of birth rates overall. Many of those with the highest birth rates teach abstinence instead of comprehensive sex education, according to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
That’s incredibly deceptive – on purpose, I’m sure. Liberal groups like Planned Parenthood would like people to believe that “abstinence only” education strictly forbids any discussion of safe sex beyond abstinence. That’s not always the case. For example, if you take a look at page one of this CDC document, which lists the percentage of live births to mothers under 20 years old for 2005 and 2006, you’ll see that the birth rate per 1000 under-20 females in Louisiana increased from 13.7 to 13.8. But if you go to the anti-abstinence SIECUS website (to learn more about how huge SIECUS is to the public school system, click here), where 