Coalition pushes sex ed
By Marc Kovac
Ohio ranks 28th in the country in terms of teen-pregnancy rates, study results show.
COLUMBUS — Abstinence-only education doesn’t work, and Ohio should increase funding for comprehensive sex education, contraceptives and family planning services to prevent teenage pregnancies, according to a study released Tuesday.
Such efforts, according to the Coalition for Family Health, would reduce costs to young people affected by teen pregnancies and state agencies that provide services to citizens in need.
“Teen pregnancy in Ohio, just like in the rest of the United States, has tremendous financial and social impact on young people, on our society as a whole,” said Dianne Kerr, an associate professor of health education and promotion at Kent State University. “And we can do much better in preventing it.”
The coalition, whose members include Planned Parenthood, the Family Planning Association of Northeast Ohio, the League of Women Voters of Ohio and others, released its teen pregnancy study during a press conference at the Statehouse.
Kerr wrote the introduction to the document, “Report on the Costs of Teen Pregnancy in Ohio.”
According to the study, Ohio ranks 28th in the country in terms of teen pregnancy rates, with 15,713 live births and 6,057 abortions among residents younger than 20 in 2005.
It noted, “The vast majority of teens in Ohio are having sex before they reach adulthood. Just under half of all Ohio high school students have had sex, and by the 12th grade, this increases to nearly two-thirds of students.”
Teenage mothers often do not complete high school and end up living in poverty, their children’s fathers providing no support.
“Many of them get trapped in a cycle of poverty,” Kerr said. “Many are on welfare. Unfortunately, domestic violence is common among these young women.”
She added that prevention of unwanted pregnancies “would save the state of Ohio quite a bit of money.”
Increased comprehensive sex education, with information on abstinence and birth control, has proved effective in reducing teen pregnancies, Kerr said.
That type of education should come primarily from parents, though “if they need help doing that, hopefully we can provide some type of training to do that,” she added.
Any program should include some focus on problem-solving, decision-making, and assertive communication.
“In many of the curricula, they [students] role-play these skills, learning how to refuse a sexual advance, for example, or suggest alternatives, that type of thing,” Kerr said.
“And these curricula have been shown to postpone sexual involvement, and when kids do have sex, it’s been shown to increase contraceptive use.”