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July 2001

By Dr. Joanna K. Mohn, doctor of internal medicine and Director of the Task Force on Teen Sexual Health for the NJ Physicians Resource Council.

Now that the Senate Education Committee has passed bill S-868, the full NJ Senate needs to act by voting for it as soon as possible. This bill will provide teens with a health message that eliminates risk as opposed to the current message which aims at reducing risk. For every aspect of their wellbeing we want our children to hear the healthiest message with current information and a sound medical message.

Under the current NJ Comprehensive Family Life Education Curriculum, it is common for today’s students to have the misconception that condoms give 98% protection to prevent pregnancy. The actual, documented failure rate is 15% for committed adult couples during the first year of use and between 36.3% and 44.5% for young, unmarried, minority women.

The reality is that; 1 out of 4 sexually active teens contract a sexually transmitted disease every year , condoms offer no protection from two of the most common and damaging STD’s , and 19% of sexually active teens are becoming pregnant each year . And although there has been a decline nationally in teen pregnancy, that decline has occurred, “In all but one state – New Jersey.”

AIDS is also on the increase and the age group that is being most impacted is our young people. The greatest infection increase is in this population. UNAIDS, estimates that more than 50 percent of new infections worldwide occur among 15 to 25-year-olds.

The Stress Abstinence Bill would not replace the current comprehensive sex education message. It merely has educators stress the message our children deserve; abstinence is the best and healthiest choice for adolescents. Students would continue to learn about contraceptive methods, but it would be stressed that they are interventions for high-risk behavior.

One issue raised by opponents of this bill is that there would be excessive costs to a school health department in providing appropriate abstinence materials for the classroom. This argument is unfounded. Due to the nature of health education all school health departments have a responsibility to keep current with the ever-changing medical information and therefore already must frequently update their information and materials. These materials, usually a classroom video, are not at all costly. A second argument is that abstinence is already being taught in the classroom under the state mandated Core Curriculum Content Standards for comprehensive health and physical education. The state mandate as it is, does not clearly and concisely say that abstinence is to be stressed as the best practice for risk elimination. It merely lists abstinence as if it were another risk reduction and prevention strategy. We would like to think that every school would already be stressing abstinence to their students but we know that this is not the case.

We MUST support those students who are already abstaining from sex, — about half of today’s students! We will most certainly increase that number if educators begin teaching unequivocally that abstinence is the best and healthiest choice; while teaching the factual reasons why, and empowering students to make and keep that decision.

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