Learning from history?

Obviously some people find that pretty difficult:

Abstinence-only programs like those promoted by the Bush administration don’t seem to be working on teenagers in the president’s home state, according to a state-sponsored study by Texas A&M University researchers.

Or is this a case of people walking around blindfolded, hoping that if they can’t see the rest of the world, the rest of the world won’t see how naive they are? Face it, lots of teenagers will have sex, whether their parents like or know it or not. So the question is not of yes or no, but of how. Please, let someone out there wake up and smell the coffee and give these kids a proper education before the number of teenager mothers start growing again. At least, last I remember the number was going down.

Digging around for some statistics, I find an article with the following quote:

Teenage women’s contraceptive use at first intercourse rose from 48% to 65% during the 1980s, almost entirely because of a doubling in condom use. By 1995, use at first intercourse reached 78%, with 2/3 of it condom use.

Further down it reads:

Steep decreases in the pregnancy rate among sexually experienced teenagers accounted for most of the drop in the overall teenage pregnancy rate in the early-to-mid 1990s. While 20% of the decline is because of decreased sexual activity, 80% is due to more effective contraceptive practice.

Also in there:

Teen pregnancy rates are much higher in the United States than in many other developed countries–twice as high as in England and Wales or Canada, and nine times as high as in the Netherlands or Japan

Which could go a long way to explain why this phenomenon seems so alien to my born and raised in the Netherlands self.

Of course, who am I kidding, I’m probably preaching to the choir here anyway. :-(