Word: teens
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...academy's two-year study found no convincing evidence that contraceptives promote teen sex; nor are eager teenagers likely to heed advice to remain celibate. Predictably, the report was praised by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America but attacked by religious groups. Said Richard Doerflinger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops: "They're saying there's no way to educate kids to live better. They're proposing a counsel of despair...
...first audience for the report. The conclusions announced last week by the working arm of the NAS--the Congressionally chartered National Research Council--are a welcome dissenting voice from a government that has failed to respond adequately to the AIDS epidemic and to an equally alarming epidemic of teen pregnancy. As an author of the AIDS study commented, there is "very little knowledge about sexual practices...
...Teen pregnancy among Blacks has been called one of this country's fundamental social crises. The Academy called AIDS "a national health crisis." The coincidence of the reports' conclusions points to an underlying problem: too often government and public alike have sidestepped education and open discussion about sexuality. Clearly contraception is a quick fix rather than a long-term solution for problems like the breakdown of the family and the spread of an incurable disease. But for the moment, a quick fix is just what is needed. We hope the recent reports become more than mere recommendations...
...proposal to establish three school-based clinics. In Boston, Bernard Cardinal Law denounced four proposed health clinics that would provide contraceptives in junior and senior high schools. In an 86-page attack, the archdiocese challenged the constitutionality of school clinics and argued that contraceptives increase the amount of teen sex by eroding "cautions and reluctance." Replied Nancy Drooker of Massachusetts' Planned Parenthood: "Most teenagers are sexually active for over a year before they get contraception, so you can hardly say birth control was the cause...
...conservatives have their own favorite research, described by one of the authors in the Wall Street Journal but not yet generally available: two studies by Utah researchers named Stan Weed and Joseph Olsen. Their major finding is that during a period when the number of teens using family-planning clinics rose from 300,000 to 1.5 million, the teen pregnancy rate actually increased 19%. Births were down, they said, but only because of abortion. "Apparently the programs are more effective at convincing teens to avoid birth than to avoid pregnancy," Weed wrote in the Journal. The point: teens tend...