Sex Ed Failure in NYC

New York City’s teen pregnancy rates are apparently so high that high schools are dispensing Plan B or the morning-after pill (emergency contraception) in addition to their controversial mandated sex education agenda.

According to the Associated Press:  “In a campaign believed to be unprecedented in its size and aggressiveness, New York City is handing out the morning-after pill to girls as young as 14 at more than 50 public high schools, sometimes even before they have had sex.”

 A Parent Association president on Staten Island said, “I think it is a good idea. The children nowadays are not going to abstain from sexual intercourse.” …“How many unwed mothers do we need?”

This parent has lowered the standard for children by expecting them to have sex. The parent also ignores that fact that teens nationally and in New York ARE abstaining from sex.

(According to the CDC’s High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data for NYC, the “Proportion of High School Students Who Have Ever Had Sex, 2011 was 42%, compared to the US at 47.4%.” What is NYC not doing compared to the rest of the state or nation?) 

This so-called new initiative has been quietly expanding for at least four years. Many parents are crying foul now that the news is out.

Yet, NYC and many school districts across the nation are not required to get parental consent or permission – they are only required to notify parents. Many parents may never see the notification or misunderstand the verbiage.  

Several questions arise with this inititiave:

• Considering that Comprehensive Sex Education is the predominant approach, has it failed to prevent pregnancies in NYC? 
• Has there been an increase in teen sexual activity in NYC under Comprehensive Sex Education? 
• Is the NYC Department of Education now saying that teaching Safe-Sex practices (condoms and birth control) to kids is not enough to prevent pregnancies? 
• And, is NYC now covering this failure - to change teen sexual behavior - by pumping them with dangerous massive doses of hormones and steroids to show that teen pregnancies are declining?
• If potential “pregnancies” can be eliminated by taking morning-after pills then the documented pregnancy rates would necessarily decrease. This would certainly make NYC’s agenda appear more successful.
• Why not try to decrease pregnancy rates by teaching teens to avoid all sexual activity?

(Out of thirty-one teen pregnancy prevention programs approved by US HHS, Heritage Keepers is the only proven-effective, evidence-based authentic abstinence education program!  A year after the program, Heritage Keepers students abstained at a rate 3 times greater than similar non-program students.)

However, pregnancy rates in NYC have not decreased as much as the national rates. Therefore, in order to perpetuate the media mantras that Comprehensive Sex Education works and Abstinence Education has failed, NYC needs to show a significant decrease in teen pregnancy and birth rates. Live birth rates are not so much an issue since NYC abortion rates are the highest in the nation.   

They believe that nothing else can be done to drive these pregnancy rates lower than to do more and more of the same. 

This is why they believe mandates and subsidies are necessary to push FREE Plan-B or the morning-after pill in the schools. This is the ONLY possible solution, they believe, that fits their sex-without-consequences agenda. 

Yet, research indicates that handing out emergency contraception only makes matters worse. It provides more ways for teens to rationalize having more sex thus increasing pregnancies and STDs. 

A proven predictor of teen sexual behavior is sexual climate. If sexual activity is expected, promoted and common in the school or community, and there is ample opportunity to engage in it, then teens will be more likely to engage in sexual behavior.  

• What are we doing to our teens when their schools are saturated with all things sexual?
• What are we doing to our teens when their parents, community, and governing authorities set a standard that expects them to have sex?

When abstinence from sexual behavior is ridiculed and dismissed, nothing is left but a Sex-Only approach to pregnancy prevention.

• Why is Abstinence Education not even a consideration in NYC?
• Why are the benefits of abstinence and the skills to abstain censored from NYC teens? Research on some of the most popular Safe Sex programs, still in use, shows that abstinence is mentioned in less than 5% in their content.

And, the Sex-Only approach ignores the fact that a national survey conducted by the CDC revealed that over 73% of students, 17 and under, have not had sex. (see pg. 21, Table 1)

If parents are not allowed by school districts to consent or give their permission (opt-in) for their child to obtain these services, then the minor child is giving consent.

It is ludicrous that a minor child who is not old enough to legally consent to sex is somehow mature enough to give consent to obtain the morning-after pill.  

Ludicrous!

Learn more:

Sex, Lies and Hook-Ups: A Parent’s Guide for Fighting Back produced by Heritage Community Services

NYC Parents’ Choice Coalition is a lone but strong voice supporting an opt-in policy for parents so that they are fully informed of any program providing sexual information or services to their child. This coalition promotes a parent’s right to know and a common sense approach to teaching children about the benefits of abstinence, a message that is now being censored from NYC students and their parents.

New York City Sexuality Education Report by Miriam Grossman, MD

Adam and Eve after the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution by Mary Eberstadt   

Tea Party news on Twitter          Subscribe to our Tea Party news RSS feed