Choosing the Best responds to The Atlanta Journal Constitution article, “Abortion, births, pregnancy down for Georgia teens”.

Original article here

By Bruce Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution missed the key reason why Georgia’s teenage pregnancy rate has dropped dramatically over the past ten years. In both a recent article and editorial, contraception education received the main share of the credit for this welcome news, which simply reflected the writers’ bias rather than the facts.

Dr. Stuart Brown, director of the state Division of Public Health and an expert in state health trends, got it right when he credits the decline in teen pregnancies and births to abstinence education.

Consider these facts:

First, prior to 1994 contraception education had been the state norm for at least a decade. The result? Georgia led the nation in teen pregnancy.

Second, the decline in teen pregnancies began in 1994 only after the state adopted a policy mandating parent involvement in local sex education review committees—they were previously locked out of the process—and school districts began to implement abstinence-focused education in the classroom. In fact, the most dramatic declines in teen pregnancy rates among high school students have occurred since 1998 once abstinence programs were solidly in place throughout the state.

All told, this means that virtually every middle school or early high school student in Georgia’s public school system during this period of time has gone through abstinence-focused education.

So, while some after-school and community programs that reach relatively small groups of at-risk teens may have emphasized contraceptive use and may have be helpful in some areas, it’s misleading to downplay the critical role abstinence education has played in Georgia in curbing teen pregnancies, births and abortions.

Third, abstinence education in Georgia emphasizes abstinence as the best choice for young people and the only certain way to eliminate the risk of pregnancy and STDs. Contrary to how abstinence is inaccurately portrayed by some local media which suggests that no contraceptive information is provided, age-appropriate contraception information is presented. However, abstinence is always emphasized as the best choice for our children.

There is danger in teaching teens that either abstinence or having sex with a condom are equally acceptable choices. To go back to such a practice in Georgia would be a return to failure.

Bruce Cook is president of Choosing the Best Publishing and has over 13 years experience in abstinence education.