Posts
Mississippi, which is the poorest US
state and has the nation’s highest teen pregnancy rate, passed a law last year
requiring public school districts to offer either abstinence-only or
comprehensive sex education. Twenty other states and the District of Columbia
also require sex education, the Guttmacher Institute reported.
Most parents in Mississippi support
comprehensive school-based sex education, according to a statewide survey in
2011 conducted by the Social Science Research Center at the Mississippi State
University. After the law passed, 81 school districts opted for abstinence-only
instruction, while 71 chose abstinence-plus, said the state Department of
Education.
In the state’s northeast, the Lee
County School District chose abstinence-only. Health classes had previously
touched on sex education, but the district now will offer a dedicated sex
education class, said Superintendent Jimmy Weeks. The school board’s choice
reflects that “We don’t want to come across as saying ‘Hey, premarital sex is
OK; let us show you how you do it without getting a disease,’” he said.
Teen births accounted for 16 percent
of all Lee County births in 2010, according to the Mississippi Department of
Health, and for 16.5 percent in neighboring Itawamba County.
The Delta county of Coahoma had one
of the highest proportions of teen births in the state: 23 percent. After four
years of teaching abstinence-only, that district recently switched to an
abstinence-plus program, said Pauline Rhodes, its superintendent.
“I’ve seen first-hand the
devastation of children having children, and I have seen students on their way
to a promising career have to drop out,” Rhodes said. “I’ve always felt that
until we can get a handle on teen pregnancies, we will not be able to get a
handle on juvenile delinquencies.”
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
