The Teenage Pregnancy Epidemic: Is a Cure in Sight?

It has been one year since a Time magazine cover story on teenage pregnancy proclaimed that “the sexual revolution had moved from the college campus to the high school and junior high.” Since Time’s in-depth analysis, the problem of pregnancy among adolescents has become an issue of major public concern—and debate. There is little consensus on how to combat this “new epidemic,” with proposed solutions ranging from encouraging chastity to advocating contraceptives and abortion.

School-Based Clinics

Much of the debate over teenage pregnancy revolves around school-based health clinics (CT, March 7, 1986, p. 42). Along with providing first aid, nutrition counseling, immunizations, and physical examinations, these clinics offer family-planning services to students.

Supporters of such clinics point to a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine study conducted in the Baltimore school system where an experimental pregnancy-prevention program was made available. According to the researchers involved, the study showed a dramatic decrease in pregnancies. Researcher Laurie Schwab Zabin was quoted in Children & Teens Today Newsletter: “There has been a fear voiced in some quarters that exposing young people to programs that openly discuss sexual behavior, and that provide them with contraception, will increase or hasten sexual activity. This study should, once and for all, discredit such claims.” Zabin added that services offered by school-based clinics help sexually active youth guard against pregnancy, and provide sex-education materials that benefit nonsexually active youth who wish to say no to sex.

The Washington, D.C.—based Family Research Council prepared a response to the Johns Hopkins study, cautioning political leaders against using the research to make generalizations about the effectiveness of school-based health clinics. The Family Research Council argues that the Johns Hopkins research is methodologically unsound, leaves too many questions unanswered, and is not representative of the youth population at large. The council’s report states that “not enough information is available” to justify government support of school-based family-planning clinics.

Another Family Research Council report, on the effectiveness of family-planning clinics, indicated a link between those clinics and the number of teenagers who obtain abortions. In the report, researchers Stan Weed and Joseph Olsen wrote: “While there is no evidence of a reduction in the rate at which pregnancy occurs [among youth who use family-planning programs], there is strong evidence that greater involvement in family planning clinics among teenagers serves to reduce the proportion of teenage pregnancies which continue to live birth.… The availability of reliable pregnancy testing, along with counseling and referral to abortion facilities may explain part of the effect.”

Said Family Research Council president Jerry Regier: “We do not believe research substantiates that passing out contraceptives solves the problem. The problem should be approached in the same way the media is approaching drugs: teach kids to say no.”

Pro And Con

In New York City and Chicago, Christian leaders have opposed school-based clinics that provide contraceptive services. Roman Catholic officials in New York have spoken out against clinics that dispense prescriptions for birth-control devices at nine city schools. Bishop Edward M. Egan said the schools’ involvement in contraceptive services “exceeds the legitimate role of the public school” and violates the rights of parents.

In Chicago, 13 pastors and an antiabortion group are seeking a court order to bar the clinic at DuSable High School from dispensing birth-control devices. “The clinic program is a calculated, pernicious effort to destroy the very fabric of family life among black parents and their children,” the suit charges.

However, other Christians say sweeping generalizations and scare tactics have stirred unwarranted opposition to school-based clinics. Peter Sjoblom, vice-president of Chicago Urban Reconciliation Enterprise (CURE), cites a Christian leader who said on a radio program that the DuSable clinic offers “abortion counseling.”

In fact, Sjoblom said, the DuSable clinic forbids “any kind of abortion counseling or abortion referral.… Eighty percent of what the DuSable clinic does isn’t for [contraceptive services].” He said Christian leaders should try to offer viable options for health care in the inner city, especially as it relates to the pregnancy problem.

“I wouldn’t fight the battle for the clinic in the suburbs,” Sjoblom said. “But from what I see from working week after week in places like Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes, something has to be done [to deal with the pregnancy problem]. As a Christian and as a minister at places like DuSable High School, I very strongly speak against fornication. But the reality is we are not dealing with a massive population who are operating from Christian values.”

Chastity: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

While the debate over school-based health clinics continues, an effort to encourage youth to say no to sexual activity is gaining momentum. In a recent episode of television’s “Facts of Life,” Kim Fields’s college-age character spent most of the program debating whether to give up her virginity. In the end, she decided against sex.

Jet magazine reported on a song by Jermaine Stewart titled “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off.” “I’m saying to kids that they don’t have to do anything in terms of sex,” Stewart told Jet. “You don’t have to take your clothes off to have a good time. It can be dangerous. There are so many diseases floating around these days, you don’t know what you’re going to catch.”

In Washington, D.C., the Children’s Defense Fund commissioned the production of several radio and television advertising spots aimed at educating teenagers about the problems of careless sex. One television announcement shows the uncovered stomach of a pregnant girl with the words, “If you thought a pimple is hard to explain, think of explaining this.”

At the grassroots level, an Illinois housewife and educator has organized a group of teenagers to tell others about the virtues and rewards of chastity and abstinence. Coleen Mast founded MASH (McNamara Ambassadors of Sexual Health) at McNamara High School, a Catholic school in Kankakee, Illinois.

MASH has appeared in public and parochial high schools and before church groups in several states. It has spawned similar groups in several schools, and the Denver Catholic Archdiocese is distributing MASH materials to students in its parochial schools. The MASH program consists of lectures presented by Mast and prochastity skits given by youth.

Sex And Education

Mast’s influence reaches beyond the lecture circuit. She received a $300,000 federal grant to develop and test a prochastity sex-education program for use in public schools. The program, called “Sex Respect,” is being tested in 15 schools, with more than 20,000 “Sex Respect” manuals in print. Says Mast: “Now [public school] educators can choose a program that says ‘wait until marriage.’ ”

“Sex Respect” is not the only sex-education curriculum that stresses abstinence as the best method of birth control. A program called “Human Sexuality: Values and Choices” reached as many as 3,000 middle-school and junior-high students in a field test. The curriculum was prepared and tested by Search Institute, a Minneapolis research and educational resource organization. “Values and Choices,” designed for use in grades seven through nine, includes an optional section on birth control. The program tries to help youth avoid sex during their teenage years by developing strong relational and decision-making skills.

Dave Bellis, resource development director for the Dallas-based Josh McDowell Ministry, generally supports the “Values and Choices” program. While stating concern over the optional section on contraceptives, Beilis said, “For public schools it is good. Search Institute is making strides [in promoting postponement of sex as an option].” The Josh McDowell Ministry has been doing extensive research into adolescent sexual activity. And it recently completed a “Why Wait” essay contest in which youth wrote about the virtues of sexual abstinence.

While various groups battle over the best solution to the teenage pregnancy epidemic, there is reason for cautious optimism. Many groups involved in health and sex education are echoing an idea from the “Values and Choices” parents guide: “ ‘No’ is still the best contraceptive.” Time will tell whether the nation’s youth agree.

By Chris Lutes.

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