Comments about ‘Number of teenage parents growing in Utah’

Makes the case for getting real with kids about sex education doesn't it? Forget abstinence only education. Give that up. Human nature proves over thousands of years that it doesn't work. But, you can teach your daughters to VALUE themselves and, if they think they're going to want to have sex, PROTECT themselves with condoms, and don't give me that stale old whine 'they don't always work' they work better than nothing obviously. You'd better be frank with them. I was. Chlamydia can ruin their chances of ever becoming pregnant by the way. So, just talk with them. Teach your sons too to be a considerate partner too. You don't have to be graphic. Just real. Tell them promiscuity isn't o.k. either because that's devaluing themselves and others. But, help them, don't pretend or believe fairytales. They desperately need your advice. Bet you thought you were in love once too...

I guess that "Abstinence Only" education plan is really working (NOT!)

Health education does nothing to discourage kids from getting pregant who want
to.

Some of those included are old enough to conceive and deliver. Why are 18/19 year olds considered kids?

@K

Because the rest of the world outside of Utah, 18 & 19 are considered kids. Only in Utah is a girl considered a spinster when she isn't married before 20.

Okay, lighten up, it was just a joke!

Actually, maybe abstinence education IS working, because our rate of teenage pregnancy is FAR, FAR below the national average. And remember, people marry young around here, so some of those teenage pregnancies are in wedlock.

We should still try to lower the number of teenage pregnancies for certain, and definitely the rise in Chlamydia is not good either. But to say this is evidence that abstinence education isn't working is dumb because our numbers are still far below national averages.

Wickster77 - The Utah teen parent rate is less the half the national rate and you want Utah to change it's education policy to be more like the rest of the nation?

@ livestrong:

To say our abstinence education is working because we are lower than the national average only works if there has been a national increase as well.

Wickster77 - The Utah teen parent rate is less the half the national rate and you want Utah to change it's education policy to be more like the rest of the nation?

My daughter-i-law---maried at 19, will be a mother just about the time she turns twenty. She and boy were married a couple months before she got pregent.
So now she will be considered a teen mother that should have practiced abstinence only?

California's "forward thinking" comprehensive sex education program had the opposite reaction for which it was intended: it raised the number of illegitimate births.
In reality, few teenagers have the ability to "forecast," to see the consequences of their actions. They get lost in the passion of the moment and forget/disregard what they supposedly learned in their classes.
The best safeguard is good moral instruction from loving parents who aren't afraid to be blunt and straight-forward in their teaching.

Man those illegal immigrants are costing us a fortune with all their children.


sarcasm.

California's teen birth rates have actually dropped significantly over the 10-15 years. I agree that parents should be the moral teachers, but the reality is that it's not happening as often as it should be. It's not the teacher's job to teach that sex before marriage is bad; that responsibility lies on the parents. It's the teacher's job to give his/her students as much information as possible to make an informed decision, which includes informing students that the only surefire way to avoid pregnancy is abstinence. It also includes giving students who choose to be sexually active information about preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs.

Maybe we should focus a little more on proper sex-ed instead of just abstinence when discussing these matters at home.

I'm glad I got a decent sex-ed class in 8th grade from a Davis County Jr. High.

This isn't just a Mormon thing, plenty of religions believe that abstinence is all that should be taught and it's ridiculous. In my opinion as LDS soon-to-be father, you need to mix the two, secular and religious.

RE: HeroofCanton | 4:49 p.m


Great Counsel, serve two masters.

I wonder how that'll work out.


IT is simply not the states place for this kind of education.


not matter how well intentioned.

@the truth: You are absolutely correct. It is not the state's place to give this kind of education. The home is where the education should take place. The problem is that if the education doesn't take place in the home, which it often doesn't, then it is the state and the taxpayers who pay for it in the form of state aid for teen mothers and their children. So, when parents abdicate their responsibilities to teach their children, the schools have to do it, pure and simple.

What needs to be taught is decision making and delayed gratification.

What shocks me is that there are so many couples wanting to adopt, and yet many of these teens are choosing to parent the kid. Many of them drop out of school and go on welfare. If a child were adopted, it could be raised by a couple who is financially and emotionally ready for parenting. The parents of these teenage parents seem to endorse this by their desire to be grandparents. The grandparents then end of raising the child. I know many couples who have waited many years to have a child. It is sad.

'Actually, maybe abstinence education IS working, because our rate of teenage pregnancy is FAR, FAR below the national average.' - 1:36 p.m.

livestrong, I disagree.

It seems, the article does also.

Regardless if it is 'Far, FAR' below the national average (what number exactly below?) it is still...RISING.

Since many Utahns advocate abstinence only (or the teaching of 'wait till marriage') we can see, by Utah's own standards that it is not working.

To expect your child to make the right choices, when you don't tell them what they are, is foolish.

We do children a great diservice when they have to learn about sex from other 10 year olds.

Why do red states have higher teen pregnancy rates than blue states where women are more likely to attend college and marry later when they have their economic acts together?

Someone once said that explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You can do it, but the humor, like the frog, dies. It's the same with sex education. Without the moral and ethical background of the purpose of love and marriage and chastity, it becomes a textbook connect-the-dots explanation of one of life's greatest gifts.

Only the most sexually active teens care about protection; most others are caught up in the heat of the moment, as they say. All the sex education in the world will not help adolescents, any more than drivers' ed makes them good, safe drivers.