Sex Education in the United States

Sex and Pregnancy Among Teens

• By their 18th birthday, six in 10 teenage women and more than five in 10 teenage men have had sexual intercourse.

• Between 1995 and 2002, the number of teens aged 15–17 who had ever engaged in sexual intercourse declined 10%.

• Of the approximately 750,000 teen pregnancies that occur each year, 82% are unintended. More than one-quarter end in abortion.

• The pregnancy rate among U.S. women aged 15–19 has declined steadily—from 117 pregnancies per 1,000 women in 1990 to 75 per 1,000 women in 2002.

• Approximately 14% of the decline in teen pregnancy between 1995 and 2002 was due to teens’ delaying sex or having sex less often, while 86% was due to an increase in sexually experienced teens’ contraceptive use.

• Despite the decline, the United States continues to have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world—almost twice as high as those of England, Wales and Canada, and eight times as high as those of the Netherlands and Japan.

• Every year, roughly nine million new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) occur among teens and young adults in the United States. Compared with rates among teens in Canada and Western Europe, rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia among U.S. teens are extremely high.

• Though teens in the United States have levels of sexual activity similar to levels among their Canadian, English, French and Swedish peers, they are more likely to have shorter and more sporadic sexual relationships and are less likely to use contraceptives.
Sex Education: Teens’ Perspectives

• By 2002, one-third of teens had not received any formal instruction about contraception.

• More than one in five adolescents (21% of females and 24% of males) received abstinence education without receiving instruction about birth control in 2002, compared with 8–9% in 1995.

• In 2002, only 62% of sexually experienced female teens had received instruction about contraception before they first had sex, compared with 72% in 1995.

• Only one out of three sexually experienced black males and fewer than half of sexually experienced black females had received instruction about contraception before the first time they had sex.

• One-quarter of sexually experienced teens had not received instruction about abstinence before first

BRAZIL CULTURE & ARTS

BRAZIL CULTURE & ARTS is an organization dedicated to bringing Brazilian culture, history, dance and art to the Bay Area. Under the leadership of Mestre Beiçola, a native of Rio de Jainero, the organization includes a Capoeira performing group, Capoeira Narahari, and a dance company, Sambão, as well as several on-going samba & capoeira classes for children and adults throughout the Bay Area.

BRAZIL CULTURE & ARTS offers rich programming and performances in the martial arts, dance and music of this exceptional South American nation. The organization boasts Capoeira academies in Brazil and America, a Rio-style samba school and performing company as well as a variety of ongoing classes in the San Francisco Bay Area.

BRAZIL CULTURE & ARTS sponsors cultural tours to several Brazilian states each winter and summer. Scores of people have enjoyed these tours, which offer firsthand experience of the country's finest masters of the arts and a unique insight into the unparalleled spirit of the Brazilian people.

Ignorant About Hunger

I don't believe that there is anyone going hungry in America simply by reason of denial or lack of ability to feed them,'' President Reagan said to visiting high school students last week. ''It is by people not knowing where or how to get this help.''

You're right, Mr. President, that lack of information is part of the hunger problem, but do you know why so many Americans are unsure of where to turn when their pockets and larders are empty? Would you believe that your own Administration is to blame? Here's how.

In 1971, Congress enacted an outreach program to insure that organizations involved with poor people, like senior citizens' centers and unemployment offices, provide information about the nation's food programs. The Federal Government provided booklets and paid half the program costs.

In 1981, however, the Administration tried to get this outreach provision repealed, leaving the states free to choose whether or not to participate. Then Senator Jesse Helms had an idea the Administration liked even better. Let the states continue their programs if they want, he said, but without a dime of Federal money. The Administration supported the Helms proposal, which Congress then accepted. Some states continued to promulgate information. A lot more didn't, or did so less effectively.

Two years later, Representative Leon Panetta, Democrat of California, proposed requiring outreach again - but only to reach the elderly, disabled and unemployed. Again Mr. Helms objected, and again the Administration concurred. The Panetta proposal passed the House; a counterpart never even made it to the Senate.

Perhaps you can see, Mr. President, why some Americans don't know ''where or how to get this help.'' That even some help is available in the first place is partly the result of Congress's forcing you to spend money you wanted to cut. Your budget proposed dropping the Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which helps communities deal with hunger and homelessness. It called for eliminating $50 million that helps local food banks transport and store surplus commodities.

Coincidentally, that's the same amount of money that Hands Across America hopes to raise today with its nationwide human chain. We understand you're joining in; if you're serious about hunger, there's a lot more you could do to show it.

The hungry aren't the only ones who lack information about the nation's nutrition programs. But they have an excuse.

United States Marriage

“The Massachusetts court has clearly said that same-sex partners should have the same right to marry as heterosexual couples,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Any couple should be free to demonstrate their love and commitment to each other through marriage. The state should not discriminate in this deeply personal area because of the partners’ gender or sexual orientation.”

On November 18, the state’s highest court ordered in Goodridge et. al. v Department of Public Health that gay and lesbian couples be admitted to the full rights of civil marriage. The court gave the state legislature six months to amend laws to conform with the decision. Since then, several prominent state officials—including Governor Mitt Romney, Attorney General Thomas Reilly, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas Finneran—have suggested that the legislature create special “civil unions” for gay and lesbian couples. These “civil unions” would provide some of the rights of marriage, but would create a separate but unequal system that would fail to meet the court’s stipulation.

“History shows again and again that separate is never equal,” said Roth. “Civil unions rarely if ever offer the full roster of rights that marriage entails. And they stigmatize same-sex relationships by suggesting they deserve only second-class recognition.”

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