Category Archives: Birth Control

Teen Pregnancy: What’s the Problem?

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

January 3, 2005

“Did you know? The only 100% foolproof way to prevent pregnancy is not to have sex?”

This is front page news heralded by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy on its website home page.  Recognizing the significance of America’s problem with teen pregnancies, they have set a goal to “reduce the rate of teen pregnancy by one-third between 1996 and 2005.”  This is the final year…a time to measure success…or failure.

The National Campaign website goes to great lengths to explain the urgency of this goal.  “A basic tenet of the Campaign is that reducing the nation’s rate of teen pregnancy is one of the most strategic and direct means available to improve overall child well-being and, in particular, to reduce persistent child poverty.”

Connecting cause to effect, their website points an official finger at the cause of teen pregnancies…having sex.  Ah…well…yeah…mmm…but…well, then what?

So…you don’t have sex?  And you don’t get pregnant?  This is news?

Ah…well…yeah…mmm…but…sex…well…then…what?  You don’t have sex?  Forever?  A lump forms in our throat.  Forever?  No sex?

The problem with the problem of teen pregnancy in America is our reluctance to deal with the solution.  We get as far as telling teens to not have sex…telling them this will prevent teen pregnancy.  But we have yet to settle as a nation on the time when they get to have sex.

If teens are going to be willing to abstain from having sex, we owe them a standard for the defining time when having sex is OK.  When can they start having sex?

There is a long list of answers that have been trotted out over the years…you can have sex…

…when you’re in love

…when you’re responsible

…when you’re mature

…or my favorite…

…when you’re ready…to have sex.

For thirty years, giving teens approval to have sex at the moment when they felt responsible and mature and ready, we pushed teen pregnancy rates to an all-time high in 1990 of 117 pregnancies per 1000 girls ages 15-19.

Then a change began.  In the early 1990s, maverick trend-setting teachers, bucking the “truisms” of sexual “enlightenment,” began to teach students the truth.  Sex causes pregnancy.  And if you take this truth seriously, the only time to begin having sex is when you are ready to bear the responsibilities of being pregnant…giving birth…and raising a child…when you are married.

Doctors and legislators began to connect the dots between the cause and the problem of teen pregnancy.  In 1996, Congress allocated its first small sums of money to encourage innovative educators to find effective ways to teach this truth to students and to help them achieve success in remaining sexually abstinent until marriage.

In 2000, the last year reported on the National Campaign’s records for teen pregnancies, we can be heartened by signs of success.  From the high of 117 pregnancies per thousand in 1990, we achieved a low of 84 pregnancies per thousand in 2000.

Teens are getting the message.  They are responding.  But is this enough?

It is 2005, and we are reaching for the prize.  If we are to reach the National Campaign’s goal of a reduction by one-third in teen pregnancies from 1996 to 2005, we are looking at fewer than 65 pregnancies per 1000 teen girls.

If we truly desire to reach this goal, we must reflect once more with urgency on the messages we give teens about when to not have sex…and when to have sex.

When do we want them to have babies?  When do we want our children raising our grandchildren?  How many of us will feel blessed if our children are lucky enough to be unified with a spouse…together as mother and father, husband and wife…two parents who love each other and are committed to building an enduring relationship for the benefit of their children?

If we want to solve the problem of teen pregnancy, we will have to do more than tell teens when not to have sex.  We will have to set the standards for having sex…abstinence…until marriage…a good choice for this generation…and the generation of babies they will bring into the world.

August 13, 2004:    Only

October 22, 2004:   Bringing Poppa Home

See Archives for past editorials.

The Best Part of Snuggling

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

December 10, 2004

It is black outside.  Soft pits and pats against the window…rain…and I pull the blanket closer, sinking back into the arm of the recliner.  A hot cup of tea rests at my elbow.  It is my favorite time of the day.

In the darkness, I think back to other special mornings, twenty years ago.  Wrapped in my green plush robe, rocking back and forth, it was many a quiet dark morning when I would slowly sense the presence of another person.  My son, a toddler of three, had padded into the living room, up next to my chair, with his small eyes fixed on me.

Wordlessly, in agreement that the peace of the morning was large enough for both of us, I would open my robe.  Knowing what to do, he climbed onto my lap, and I pulled the robe around us, a snuggling of two.  In many a dark early morning, so many years ago, we kept the peace together.

Snuggling…it’s hard to know the best part.  Is it the dark, the quiet, the soft touch of a hand on the shoulder?  Is it protection, comfort, acknowledgement, relationship?  Safety?  Is it the promised assurance between human beings that what happens to you will happen to me because I share your heartbeat?

I was jarred to attention last week.  I was asked to consider the first time I ever snuggled, my earliest snuggle of life, and the question brought me up short.

Was it inside the warm white blanket wrapped around me as I was laid into the arms of my mother in the hospital?  Or was it later…close against her as she nursed me, her firstborn?  Maybe my father was the first to snuggle me, peering intently, measuring the smallest eyes and lips of a baby…his…held in the crook of his arm.

Maybe…but the magic of science has opened the window on snuggling, and I think it must surely have been weeks, even months before my birth, when I knew I was safe, a knowing of safety available to all living beings even before they can explain it in words.

Surely, weeks before birth, wrapped into a bundle of baby, between my bursts of pushing and kicking against the walls of the womb…surely there were quiet moments shared with my mother where we snuggled and dreamt.  Already at this stage I had fine hair, teeth, and eyelash fringes around eyelids that opened and closed…and opened again…for infant eyes that looked around.  When she spoke, I knew my mother’s voice…outside…serenading me as I waited my time.

Certainly, even weeks earlier, when the womb was large enough for me to swim and stretch and turn somersaults, I took time to rest and sleep and snuggle.  Inside my mother’s quiet belly, worn out from my infant gymnastics, curling my toes, I would have stuck my thumb into my mouth and felt the safety of darkness…protected and safe.

One thing is certain.  I know I snuggled long before I made my first appearance under bright hospital lights.  No matter what some want to claim I was back then…a blob, a mass of cells, an embryo, a fetus…a product of conception…I was, without a doubt, a flourishing child of my parents, thriving and growing.

Today, cloaked in a battle of terminology, creating labels devoid of humanity, there are those who wish us to forget that we once snuggled in the womb.  They will not have their way with me.

I claim my existence, refusing to be dehumanized at any stage of development.  Supported by the miraculous development of four-dimensional ultrasound, doctors and parents can follow the development of babies like me.  At eight weeks, I was fully formed, a human of one inch in length, every organ present, with a strong beating heart.

At nine weeks, my fingerprints were already engraved, and my fingers were ready to grasp an object placed in my palm.

At ten weeks, my body was sensitive to touch. I squinted and swallowed. I puckered my brow and frowned.

And then I smiled…at eleven weeks.  And if I could smile, it is certain that I smiled because I felt safe, snuggled inside, nurtured and protected…my life ahead to be enjoyed and cherished.

So many years later, watching the dawn break on the mountains outside the window, I follow the beads of rain that trickle down the glass.  Another beautiful day outside, crisp and damp.  The garden will sparkle when the sun breaks through the clouds.  I take a sip of tea and pull the blanket up under my chin.

My son is grown now, and I must snuggle alone.  It’s enough, but it’s not the best there is.

If there really is a best thing to snuggling, this would have to be it…revived by thoughts of long ago…a bundle wrapped together, two of us sharing the morning…the best thing of all surely being the promised assurance between human beings that what happens to you will happen to me…because I share your heartbeat.

 *************************************

DEDICATION 

This column is dedicated to the many committed educators who are not afraid to teach our children about their earliest days of life inside the womb.  May these faithful teachers be encouraged in their work.

 

See Archives for past editorials.

 June 25, 2004:  Unplanned Joy

Blinded by Love

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

June 11, 2004

America’s love affair with the condom…it’s like a bad love affair where the lover cheats on us time and again.  After each betrayal, we get a tearful apology and renewed promises…only to take up with the same bad lover and walk into the same tired lies again.

Condoms are nothing new.  They have been traced back to 1350 BC when ancient Egyptian tribesmen used sheaths to protect themselves against infection, injury and insect bits.  Cave paintings dated 100-200 AD in southern France provide the earliest evidence of European condom use.

Almost thirty years after cultivation of the rubber tree began in the 1870s, the Durex trademark was first registered.  By 1993, annual production of natural latex condoms reached a total of 8.5 billion units.

Like all consumer products, condoms are tested, and reports on their reliability have been carried in the trusted Consumer Reports.  It’s enough to make the average person accept with calm assurance that if we sell enough condoms, we can make America safe.  So how safe are we…really?

In 1982, a major crisis ushered in the modern “age of the condom.”  Previously used to prevent pregnancies, condoms became the only available weapon against the dark unknown threat of the HIV virus.

From the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, the promises of condoms were measured against our fears of the unknown…HIV.  No one was certain exactly how it spread:  kissing, sharing drinking cups, public swimming pools, and gym locker rooms?

One thing was certain.  HIV virus was spread through sexual contact, and we grabbed the nearest band-aid…the condom.  It was better than nothing.  The real question today after thirty years of condom use is, “How much better than nothing?”

Modern risk management analysts make a living out of telling us how many times on the average we can safely ski, climb rocks, and fly in airplanes before we die.

What if you knew you had a 20% chance of dying every time you got into your family car?  Well, when talking about pregnancy and teenagers, condoms have a greater than 20% FAILURE rate in preventing pregnancy.

What if you knew you had an unlimited chance of getting infected with the disease that leads to death by cervical cancer?  Well, when talking about condoms, there is no clinical proof that condoms prevent HPV infection if you have sex with a person infected with the humanpapilloma virus (HPV).  This virus causes over 97% of cervical cancer which kills more women each year than AIDS.

What if you knew that, no matter how many condoms you’ve used during your life, genital herpes and HPV virus live on the human body outside areas covered by the condom?  Is it any wonder that one in five people over the age of 12 today are infected with genital herpes and that one million Americans acquire genital herpes infection each year?

Finally, consider those who promise parents that children can be taught to use condoms “consistently and correctly.”  Really?

Major international HIV studies have proven that even when married couples knew they might pass the HIV virus to their uninfected spouse, these couples failed to use condoms consistently and correctly every time they had sex.  These adults actually chose to expose their spouse to the deadly AIDS disease.  Can we really believe our children will do better than this?

Is this the stuff love is made of?  Twenty percent risk of pregnancy?  Unlimited risk of HPV infection leading to cervical cancer?  A life with an incurable genital herpes infection?  If the airlines operated with risks like these, who would ever get on a plane?

The truth is, condoms are like bad lovers…a few good times followed by pain and suffering.  Condoms have been around for thousands of years, and for thousands of years people still knew the best place for sex was inside a loving, monogamous and faithful marriage.  It’s an old message, and it’s still a true message.

There’s a day of reckoning for every bad love affair, a day when we declare the end to lies and deceit.  When will we be ready to declare the truth about condoms?  How about today?

 

See Archives for past editorials.

 April 30, 2004:  Condoms: A Failure to Protect

Condoms: A Failure to Protect

April 30, 2004

Apparently, there are not enough condoms in America’s schools.  And there is a group intent on fixing the problem.

They will soon introduce the “Putting Prevention First Act” in Congress.  Prevention first?  Promoting condoms?  Where have these people been during the past ten years?

They need to check with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  In June 2000, the CDC worked with experts from around the country to examine all major research on condom effectiveness.  The results of this study exploded the claims that condoms are a “safe sex” approach.

In fact, the CDC study detailed a long history of condoms and their failure to protect.  It finally nailed down the facts that document why we are in the midst of a raging epidemic of STDs.  For one thing, virus and bacteria live on the body outside areas covered by the condom.  Even the body contact required to put on a condom can spread STD infections.

Condoms, even if used consistently and correctly, fail to secure the health of our children.  Don’t take my word for it.

Ask the CDC.  Their fact sheet spells it out, “No protective method is 100 percent effective, and condom use cannot guarantee absolute protection against any STD.”

Today, serious and lifelong STD infections run rampant.  One such STD, human papilloma virus (HPV) is the primary cause for over 99% of all cervical cancer.  What does that mean to you and your children?

More women die each year from cervical cancer than from AIDS.  Cervical cancer occurs in approximately 13,000 women every year in the United States, and kills almost 5,000 American women yearly.  Many of these are young women…in the prime of their life…mothers who leave behind husbands and children.

Five to six million Americans become infected with genital HPV every year. Twenty million Americans are currently infected with the virus, and another 80 million have been infected at some time in the past. This means that 75 percent of sexually active Americans are or have previously been infected.

HPV is only the first STD on a very long list of failures of the condom to protect the health of sexually active people.  Certainly, Americans need prevention.  And we need it now.  But what exactly is “prevention”?

Ask the CDC.  They spell it out on their fact sheet.  “The surest way to avoid transmission of sexually transmitted diseases is to abstain from sexual intercourse, or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and you know is uninfected.”

We have had over thirty years of condom education, condom distribution and condom reassurance.  One organization promoting condoms to our children received over $240 million dollars from the government in 2001-2002 and expended $40.7 million for sex education.

Today, do we need to throw good money after bad?  Do we need really need more government money to teach our children the intricacies of using a condom that will fail to protect them?

Sure.  Let’s put prevention first.  But anyone who is serious about sex and prevention will not be fooled into wishful thinking about condoms.  They will stand for truth.  Research proves that condoms do not offer the kind of protection that will keep our children safe.

If we really believe prevention comes first, we will take the time to get our facts straight.  And we will deliver the facts in an uncompromising message that our children hear.

Prevention first, second, third and fourth means exactly one thing.  Healthy sex belongs inside a marriage commitment between two people who will love each other for a lifetime.

See April 2, 2004:  Sex Education: Spinning the Truth

One Stop Shopping

April 16, 2004

Comprehensive sex education…it’s being sold all over America.  The best thing about comprehensive sex education, we parents are told, is that it teaches our children everything.   That’s right…everything.

It teaches children how to say no…and then it teaches them that they can pleasure each other with mutual masturbation.

It teaches children how to say no…and then it teaches them how to put on a condom.

It teaches children to ask their parents…and then it hands them the address to the nearest clinic where they can get birth control and abortions without telling their parents.

It teaches children that some people save sex until marriage…and then it teaches children that marriage isn’t for everyone.

What is the true message comprehensive sex education gives our teens?  This is only clear when put into context with a real child.

In my first interview with an expert who had been teaching comprehensive sex education for over thirteen years, I came to the end of the hour totally perplexed.  “Safe sex”, perfect use, neutral values, healthy attitudes?  In a moment of frustration, I asked this expert about “my Daughter Debbie.”  What if “Daughter Debbie” sat in on your sex education class?

It’s a simple question, and I have tagged it the Ultimate Test Question for all sex education programs.  If you want to know what all the fancy talk and clever rationales mean, just ask someone about “your own Daughter Debbie.”

13-year-old Daughter Debbie

OK, so, what do you really teach?

What if my 13-year-old Daughter Debbie sat through all of your lessons on sex education and came to you as you were packing to leave with this question:

My boyfriend is at the high school.  He’s 16, and we’ve been talking about having sex.  It seems like if we use a condom we’ll be safe.  I’ve talked it over with some of my friends, and they’re already having sex.  We’re mature.  We know what we’re doing.  Everyone says if we use a condom that we’ll be safe.  I’m thinking I’m going to go ahead…What do you think?

In every interview with every adult who teaches comprehensive sex education, I have concluded with this question.  Not one of these adults would express any opinion to Debbie in answering her question.

At best, several said they would do a quick re-run of all the lessons and options presented.  They might encourage her to talk with “someone she trusts.”  I suggested that Debbie had chosen them as a trustworthy person.  They said she needed someone else.  I mentioned her boyfriend and her girlfriends.  Well…they paused.  And silence set in.

Thinking perhaps I had caught them off-guard, I suggested a possible response:  “As gently and quietly as possible, what if you told Debbie that ultimately she would have to make up her own mind, but that since she had asked you, you would have to say you would not recommend having sex at this point in her life.  Could you tell her that?”

“No,” came the quick reply each time.  “We don’t teach values.”

Most of these educators had been in “the business” for more than ten years.

Consider this additional fact concerning Daughter Debbie.  At 13, she and her sixteen year-old-boyfriend are considering the kind of sex called statutory rape in many states.

Can we really call it conscionable sex education to deny her the wisdom of our counsel—especially when she asks us?  “No, Debbie, I do not believe it is wise for you to begin having sex with your boyfriend.  Can I offer you some help in dealing with this problem?”

One stop shopping that sells children anything they want at any time in their lives is the core of the problem with sex education in America.  If we fail to place a value on sex, if we fail to discriminate between appropriate and inappropriate, if we fail to make value judgments, then we have no reason to be surprised when our children become pregnant and infected with STDs.

One stop shopping…educators who give our children a free pass to do whatever they want when they feel they are ready to do whatever they want…and educators who give them the tools to do it…are they part of the solution…or part of the problem?

One stop shopping…if we tell Daughter Debbie that she can buy anything in the store whenever she wants and that we will write the check for her…then we shouldn’t be surprised if she buys sex with her boyfriend.