Teen Pregnancy Increase Not A Total Surprise, Says Local Planned Parenthood Leader

ALBANY, NY (12/05/2007)(readMedia)-- Press Statement by Patricia McGeown, President/CEO of Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood, in Response to CDC Report “Births: Preliminary Data for 2006”

As the President/CEO of Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood, I am alarmed but not totally surprised at the new report by the Center for Disease Control announcing the first increase in our national teen birth rate in 14 years. The anecdotal evidence of a decline in pregnancy prevention knowledge and practice among our youth has been accumulating for several years. As a nation we cannot drag our feet any longer. We cannot argue with facts or hide the truth.

This is a preventable public health problem — at last count an estimated 750,000 American teens will become pregnant this year and nearly four million will contract a sexually transmitted infection. Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood has been providing comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education programming to youth for several decades. The body of evidence regarding what methods of sex education and pregnancy prevention are effective or ineffective is significant and growing. The solution to the problem is age-appropriate, comprehensive, medically accurate sex education beginning at an early age and continuing through the school years.

Such sex education must be taught by knowledgeable, skilled educators and reinforced by youth trained as peer educators, by parents and caregivers at home, and through the media. In addition, those youth who are sexually active must have access to the information and services they need to protect themselves against unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

We must stop the wasteful expenditure of state and federal funding on ineffective abstinence-only until marriage programming. We must reinvest in the promotion of condom use to prevent both pregnancy and HIV/AIDS. We must turn away from policies based on fear and ideology and give our full support to those based on science and experience.

New York State has taken an important step in this direction. Governor Spitzer has turned away federal dollars restricted to abstinence-only programming and funneled state matching dollars into comprehensive sex education programs. But the U.S. House of Representatives recently approved increased funding for abstinence-only sex education. And the New York State Senate failed once again to pass The Healthy Teens Act that would help establish a grant program for schools seeking to provide effective sex education.

It is time to step up to the plate. New York State must pass and fund the Healthy Teens Act. Both federal and state government need to increase funding for financially strapped family planning providers that face great challenges in providing young people with the access they need to affordable services. HIV/AIDS programs need to be free to promote condom use. And schools and communities need to work together to promote knowledge and responsible behavior among our youth.

Until then, we will continue to place the health and lives of our youth at risk and undermine our efforts to build economically and socially strong communities.

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