A kid having a kid...

When I was in high school, an old girlfriend turned up one day.  It turns out she'd started shooting up while we were dating.  All of a sudden she's back in my life, strung out and pregnant - and HIV positive.  "Doctors never give you what you want, Neal honey," she'd say.  She delivered the baby and then she died.  Then the baby died, and I found out I had HIV.  And then I'd end the play saying, "So remember, a kid having a kid doesn't do either kid any good."

When I was in high school, the AIM Program was an abstinence sex ed program based in my hometown of Troy.  Several friends and I participated in a play we performed at numerous high schools around southeastern Alabama (for those interested, I think Reid Jones still has a VHS somewhere).  While my thoughts have changed a bit on sex-ed since those days, my interest in reproductive health has remained.

Each week, the CDC puts out something called the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which essentially provides statistics on who's dying of what in America.  They also provide some nice articles on relevant issues in health.  This week's article is a selection on teen pregnancy, where rates in the US continue to tower above the developed world, even as much as 9 times the rates of some countries.  Apparently pregnancy rates among those 15-19 have dropped (hooray!), but rates among blacks and Hispanics remain disproportionately high.  Teens in the American South have rates higher than the rest of the country.

Some statistics are particularly concerning.  In Alabama, abstinence-only sexual education programs are the only ones permitted.  These stats show that only half of kids are getting any sex information from their parents, and a high percentage of those having sex are not getting any accurate sexual education from anyone.  If we want to fight teen pregnancy rates, particularly among minorities, we need to re-evaluate sex-ed.  Contrary to popular belief, if you tell kids about sex, they are not more likely to do it.  And if they do decide to have sex, at least they will be making informed decisions.

MMWR Teen Pregnancy