New York State Fails its Youth on Three Counts: Unwanted Pregnancy, Sexually Transmitted Infections, & HIV
New York City, September 18, 2008- Despite the facts, New York State does not require schools to teach comprehensive sexuality education. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately half of all high school students have had sex, but many of them graduate without being taught how to protect themselves against infection and unwanted pregnancy. The CDC reported that 34% of high school students who were sexually active in 2005 had not used a condom the last time they engaged in sexual intercourse, evidencing that large numbers of our young people lack the basic skills for ensuring safe sexual relationships.
“I am shocked every time I look at these statistics,” said Tracy Welsh, executive director of HIV Law Project. “The fact of the matter is that our youth are sexually active and we continue to fail them by not teaching and reinforcing safe sexuality.”
The consequences of this failure is that 1 in 4 teenage girls (26%) between the ages of 14 and 19 in the United States -- 3.2 million teenage girls -- has a sexually transmitted infection, with rates as high as 48% among African-American young women. Approximately 13% of the persons diagnosed with HIV in 2004 were between the ages of 13 and 24. In 2006 alone, there were more than 40,000 teen pregnancies in New York State. As students across New York State settle into their first terms of the school year, these statistics compel us to consider how many of them will become pregnant unwittingly? How many will contract a sexually transmitted infection? How many will discover that they have HIV?
“The U.S. government has poured over a billion dollars into abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, yet this approach is misdirected, out-of-touch with youth, and ineffective in preventing infection and unwanted pregnancies,” said Ms. Welsh. Although New York State no longer accepts federal funds that require participating districts to teach abstinence-only programs, state legislators have failed to issue a state mandate to teach comprehensive sexuality education in its schools, and repeatedly fail to approve funding for comprehensive sex ed programs.
“HIV, STIs and teen pregnancy undermine the health, education, and future well-being of our young people,” said Ms. Welsh. “We can achieve a significant reduction in the rates of infection and, equally, in the numbers of unwanted teen pregnancies by introducing comprehensive sexuality education in our schools.”