Utah raises bar on teen births

The Utah Department of Health announced Friday that it's notching up teen pregnancy prevention efforts. The action came at the same time the State Board of Education wiped its pregnancy prevention programs off the books.

With a state teen pregnancy rate already half the national average, the health department has set an ambitious new goal of reducing the rate by 20 percent by the year 2015.

"We are raising the bar. We are setting another goal," said Dr. David Sundwall, health department executive director. "What we're trying to do is bring people together to say, 'This isn't good enough, we're going to reduce it by half yet again.' "

Despite a low statewide teen birth rate, in some areas of Utah — Rose Park, Glendale and downtown Ogden — teen birth rates are nearly triple the statewide rate of 34.5 births per 1,000 females ages 15-19.

The Utah Adolescent Health Network, a coalition of individuals and community groups, is working on a plan to provide education and resources to teens and their parents to decrease the rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

The health department has secured a $288,000 annual grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, funds that will go to eight community-based programs that provide abstinence-based sex education.

The Pregnancy Resource Center of Salt Lake will use the funds for its SEAL (Sexual Education for Abstinent Lifestyles) program, which visits middle schools in the Salt Lake Valley and Washington County to teach classes about abstinence.

Wearing a black T-shirt bearing the words "Sex Makes Babies," SEAL program's Angela Rohr extolled the virtues of abstinence programs vs. more comprehensive ones, which give equal weight to abstinence and contraceptives.

"I've been in abstinence sex education for over 20 years and I know it works," she said. "If you're not having sex, you're not going to have to worry about teen pregnancy."

Utah embraces abstinence-based sex education. School districts can opt for an abstinence-only curriculum and a few, including Provo, have done so, said Frank Wojtech, health and P.E. specialist for the State Office of Education. High school health teachers in those districts stress abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterward. They cannot discuss sexual intricacies or advocate homosexuality or contraceptives. Schools can teach about contraceptives, but only to students with with written parental permission.