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Viewpoint: Want to reverse the rise in teen pregnancy rates? Here’s how

By Debbie Rogow

Psst! Over here! You didn’t know that May is National Teen Pregnancy Month?

OK, you might have overlooked the start of Teen Pregnancy Month, competing as it does with other monthlong campaigns, such as those for better sleep, bicycles, good car care, wetlands and photos. Oh, it’s also National Salad Month.

But forget, for the moment, about May. Instead, think quickly: What month will it be when a girl — let’s call her Maya — who unintentionally becomes pregnant while you’re reading this, gives birth in the winter?

There are more than 2,000 girls in America who, like Maya, will become pregnant today. Like women and girls everywhere, they get pregnant for all kinds of reasons: They don’t anticipate having sex; their partners won’t use a condom; they missed a couple of days on the pill; they thought they were in the “safe” part of their cycle; they were pressured on prom night; they were coerced into sex; they did everything “right” and still got pregnant.

Distressingly, adolescent pregnancy rates are back on the rise after more than a decade of falling. Here in San Luis Obispo County, as is true across the country, the girls most vulnerable to early, unintended pregnancy are Latina. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the teen birth rate among Latinas is almost seven times higher than the rate among Asian-American girls in the county and five times higher than the rate among white girls.

Forget, too, about films like “Juno”; precocious girls making “friends” with rich adoptive couples and coming out of it all smiles are hardly the norm. Maya is a more typical teen mother — less likely to finish high school, more likely to remain in poverty and more likely to give birth to an underweight baby. We’re not in Hollywood, Toto; this is Kansas. And Illinois. And California.

Finally, forget about moralistic solutions; we know what works for reducing unintended pregnancy among adolescents.

First, move beyond conservative gender norms that are associated with early, unwanted and unprotected sex. This means empowering girls but also helping boys reflect on the pressures linked to conventional “manhood.”

Second, offer support to families so they have an opportunity to develop their social and economic power to thrive.

Third, to reduce teen pregnancy, provide young people with complete and medically accurate information about their bodies, their health and their rights. When the federal government began funding abstinence-only sex education in 1996, 49 states signed up. California was the only state to abstain from abstinence-only program funding. As teen pregnancy rates in the country began to rise, 16 more states have followed our lead in refusing federal abstinence-only funds. (Can we designate 2008 as National Science Exists Year?)

Fourth, ensure access to contraception and safe abortion. Californians have helped safeguard abortion access by voting down ballot initiatives that would have endangered the safety of teens who for whatever reason could not talk to their parents about an unintended pregnancy. Watch out for the next version of this dangerous initiative in November— this time offering vulnerable teens another “alternative”: reporting their parents as abusers, unwittingly triggering a report to Child Protective Services.

So, let’s forget about consigning Maya to May. We owe it to girls like her to work year-round to ensure they can complete their education and have meaningful choices about their lives.

If that doesn’t matter to us, there’s always June. It’s the designated month for accordion awareness, adopting a cat and the papaya.

Debbie Rogow is a consultant to the Population Council, an international nonprofit organization that seeks to improve the well-being and reproductive health of current and future generations and to help achieve a humane, equitable and sustainable balance between people and resources. She serves on the board of the Action FUND of Planned Parenthood of Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties.