Best way to stop abortion is honest sex education
Posted by: "Scott Munson"
Thu Apr 26, 2007 9:10 am (PST)
After two terms of Jeb Bush in the Florida governor's mansion and two
terms of George W. Bush in the White House, abstinence groups have
gotten a big funding boost and entrée into public schools.

And what has it gotten us?

More abortions than ever in Florida and Broward.

Best way to stop abortion is honest sex education

Published April 26, 2007

The abortion debate frustrates Joan Specht. She has been a nurse at
Planned Parenthood in Broward County for eight years, and was a labor
and delivery nurse at a Boca Raton hospital before that. She has
helped deliver healthy babies and has helped women who've decided to
abort.

With the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruling that lawmakers can ban
certain abortion procedures, she worries that women's control over
their bodies is being chipped away.

But she also has another, more pressing concern: that teens aren't
getting properly educated to avoid unwanted pregnancies -- and the
need for abortions -- to begin with.

"We're living in a state of denial," Specht said. "The approach
that's being taken is so head-in-the-sand."

More and more, there's been a push toward abstinence-only programs
and limited sex education in schools.

For that we have conservative religious groups and the politicians
who pander to them to thank.

After two terms of Jeb Bush in the Florida governor's mansion and two
terms of George W. Bush in the White House, abstinence groups have
gotten a big funding boost and entrée into public schools.

So instead of learning the whole range of options when it comes to
preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, more kids are
being taught to just say no.

And what has it gotten us?

More abortions than ever in Florida and Broward.

In 1998, the year before Jeb Bush took office, there were 82,335
abortions in Florida, and 10,328 in Broward, according to state
health records.

In 2005, the latest year for which stats are available, there were
92,513 abortions in Florida, 14,623 in Broward.

The records didn't provide a breakdown of abortions by age.

On the bright side, there has been a decrease in births by mothers 18
and younger during the same period statewide, from 16,949 to 14,802.

Whether that's because more teens are celibate, more teens are using
contraception or more teens are having abortions is open to debate.

All Specht knows is it's getting harder for Planned Parenthood to get
its message out and provide services to teens.

Specht raised five daughters, now 37-42, in Fort Myers, and she said
Planned Parenthood representatives would come into their high schools
to give talks on reproductive health.

"Now, we can't even get into schools to present the information,"
Specht said. "We've regressed."

The federal government recently released results of a study it
sponsored evaluating abstinence programs in schools. It found that
students in the programs had sex at about the same rates and at the
same age as those who weren't in the programs.

Planned Parenthood has been demonized for talking openly about sex
and offering comprehensive services, including emergency
contraception (the so-called morning-after pill) and abortions.

Planned Parenthood doesn't do surgical abortions at its four Broward
clinics, but it does provide medication abortions with the RU-486 pill.

Specht would much prefer that sexually active teens learn how to
prevent pregnancy and disease.

To that end, she oversees Teen Health Broward, a program that
provides counseling, testing and contraception services for 13- to 17-
year-olds. Some come with their parents, some come alone. The cost is
$30 for males, $50 for females, and includes exams, Pap smears, STD/
HIV testing, condoms and birth control pills.

"It's all by word of mouth," Specht said.

She said about 100 new teen patients enroll every month at clinics in
Fort Lauderdale, Tamarac and Pembroke Pines.

"We teach them respect for sex and respect for themselves," Specht
said. "We talk about abstinence, but we also talk about the steps
they need to take if they don't remain abstinent."

How logical.

Michael Mayo's column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Read him
online every weekday at Sun-Sentinel.com/mayoblog. Contact him at
954-356-4508 or mmayo@....

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