Sex Education: Basic health care
Sex Education: Basic health careSEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD Published March 12, 2008 Here's one that will make parents want to lock up their teenagers: A new federal study shows that at least 25 percent of American teenage girls have a sexually transmitted disease. We'd like to feign shock, but given that the rate of teen pregnancies also shot up between 2005 and 2006, we sort of saw this coming. Not surprising, some experts say the unsettling numbers are the result of abstinence-only sex education. Not to be swayed by facts, the Bush administration continues increased funding for abstinence-only sex ed while freezing the funds for programs that truly work, such as Planned Parenthood clinics. This means teens have fewer places to go for discreet, free STD screenings and practical, medically based sex-ed information.
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