(submitted by gekkogecko)

By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO - A leading group of pediatricians says
teenagers need access to birth control and emergency
contraception, not the abstinence-only approach to sex
education favored by religious groups and
President Bush.

The recommendations are part of the American Academy
of Pediatrics' updated teen pregnancy policy.

"Even though there is great enthusiasm in some circles
for abstinence-only interventions, the evidence does
not support abstinence-only interventions as the best
way to keep young people from unintended pregnancy,"
said Dr. Jonathan Klein, chairman of the academy
committee that wrote the new recommendations.

Teaching abstinence but not birth control makes it
more likely that once teenagers initiate sexual
activity they will have unsafe sex and contract
sexually transmitted diseases, said Dr. S. Paige
Hertweck, a pediatric obstetrician-gynecologist at the
University of Louisville who provided advice for the
report.

The report appears in July's Pediatrics, being
published Tuesday.

It updates a 1998 policy by omitting the statement
that "abstinence counseling is an important role for
all pediatricians." The new policy says that while
doctors should encourage adolescents to postpone
sexual activity, they also should help ensure that all
teens — not just those who are sexually active — have
access to birth control, including emergency
contraception.

Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and
families at the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, said counseling only abstinence,
preferably until marriage, is the best approach
because it sends a clear, consistent message.
Teenagers who are sexually active should have access
to contraception, but making birth control available
to teens who aren't sends a contradictory message, he
said.

The academy's recommendations "to some extent confuse
prevention and intervention," Horn said.

Citing 2003 government data, the academy's report says
more than 45 percent of high school girls and 48
percent of boys have had sexual intercourse. While
teen pregnancy rates have decreased in recent years,
about 900,000 U.S. teens get pregnant each year.

Moreover, U.S. teen birth rates are higher than in
comparable industrialized countries, which may be
partly due to greater access to contraception in some
countries, the report said.

The Medical Institute for Sexual Health, a nonprofit
group that has worked on pro-abstinence programs with
the Bush administration and faith-based groups,
opposes the academy's policy shift.

"I don't think it's a smart move at all," said group
founder Dr. Joe McIlhaney Jr., an
obstetrician-gynecologist.

However, Karen Pearl, interim president of the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the
academy "is to be applauded ... for having medicine
trump ideology."

HHS' Horn also said advising pediatricians to ensure
that teens have access to emergency contraception is
problematic for doctors and parents who morally object
to the pills. He faulted the report for lacking
guidance on what to do when pediatricians' moral views
differ from their patients' parents.

Emergency contraception, sometimes called the
morning-after pill, blocks ovulation or fertilization
and can prevent pregnancy for up to three days after
sex. Opponents consider it a form of abortion because
it is thought to also help prevent fertilized eggs
from implanting in the womb, and some pharmacists have
refused to sell it.

Emergency contraception was not mentioned in the old
report because it was new and relatively untested,
Klein said.

The academy supports making morning-after pills
available without a prescription, Klein said.

__________________

The practice of putting women on pedestals began to die out when it was discovered that they could give orders better from there.~ Betty Grable

If I wanted your opinion, I'd remove the duct tape and ask you for it.~ Me
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
One man's dream is another man's nightmare~~~~> §¤ Lilith ¤§
~>My Scribbles<~
==>Gone Shopping<== ~Just a Quickie~ *~A Celebration Vacation~* ~Surprises~ Sleeping With the Window Open
What Did You Do Today? Self Defense Class ~Short Sweet Snippets~ § Summer Spin § Story Challenge Submission Pajamas

Of course... kids always do as they're told. As long as you tell them not to have sex before marriage, they won't.

__________________
Put me on wheels and I'll turn tricks.

Clever? Nah, I ran out of that years ago. But if you find this, let me know, k?
"The road goes ever on..." ~ Tolkien

In memory of my friend skip...
Go then, there are other worlds than these

That's so much bullshit...........
You remeber how you felt when you were young?
You didn't care about any of that until you got off............
Give your kids a vibe...........
Tell them god made those feelings in you and quit denying it.
If you don't want them pregnant help them over the hump until they are mentally able to contol their urges.
I did and it's the best thing I could have ever done for my 15 yr. old daughter.
You just HAD to <insert> President Bush didn't you?
I'm so tired of this bullshit.

What the hell has happened to Pixies?

__________________
I am here for only a short time on this earth. My goal is to make everyone I see smile if only for a moment.

The article was posted as written CGT http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050705.../teen_pregnancy

__________________

The practice of putting women on pedestals began to die out when it was discovered that they could give orders better from there.~ Betty Grable

If I wanted your opinion, I'd remove the duct tape and ask you for it.~ Me
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
One man's dream is another man's nightmare~~~~> §¤ Lilith ¤§
~>My Scribbles<~
==>Gone Shopping<== ~Just a Quickie~ *~A Celebration Vacation~* ~Surprises~ Sleeping With the Window Open
What Did You Do Today? Self Defense Class ~Short Sweet Snippets~ § Summer Spin § Story Challenge Submission Pajamas

Being from sweden this is an issue whit the US that i do not understand, abstinense have NEVER worked to prevent pregnant teens...

I think it's important that teens are given sexual education early, dont treat it as tabu or moraly wrong before marrige... and i hope i dont offend any one by sayng so.

Sex is something for men and women both who are grown up and matured some mature faster then others the emphetiy should be on that no one should feel pressured in to sex

I ca understand the teatching of abstinenc but only in co teaching of cotraseptivs...

This is a desition based on fait and morality that gives wrong results.

In my family I was brought up with a strict since of everything. This is the way you do this. But luckly I had an older sister that pretty much told me everything I needed to know. I couldn't go to my dad... he was brought up in a very religious home and my mom was a bit cooler than my dad. I learned most everything when my sister @ 17 got pregnant and my cousin @ 16 got pregnant. But I feel the reason they ended up pregnant is because no one talked about it. It was like if you dont talk about it, it wont happen. Well it did. So now I have trained my way of thinking to being open with it. My daughter is only 11 but I have already started talking to her. So she will know when she really has questions then she can come to me. I also told her that if she felt embarressed to talk to me she can ask her Aunt or Grandma. Showing she has an alternitive to me. Now my son is only 7 and he isn't showing to much interest yet. I beleive you need to have some sort of protection available so when the situation comes up you will have something there.

Besides sometime it is too hard to say "No, I dont think we should do this until we are married" during the heat of the moment.

Sorry to go on.....just my two cents worth.
:cents:

__________________
DAMN, YOU ARE A SEXY ONE-skipthisone

I beleive in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve, and I beleive in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. Kevin Costner/Bull Duram

"Your body as well as mine has needs. This is juat a little foreplay to highten our desire for each other. If we play out the game of love to it's natural conclusion, you'll experience fulfillment. Give yourself up to me and I'll guide you along the path to pareadise. Together we will be like fire and ice, love and hate, life and death." Virginia Henley

WANTED: a moment when you kiss someone and eveything around you becomes hazy. And the only thing in focus is you and this person and you relize that he is the only person your suppose to kiss for the rest of your life. And for one moment you get this amazing gift. You want to laugh and you want to cry. Cause you feel so lucky that you found it and so scared it will all go away at the same time.

Well worth 2 cents in my opinion...

I ahve alwayes rolled my eye on the "not before marrige" becase simply what about if you dont want to get married... i dont meen it in the way of being free but... there are peopel who live together and dont get married, for exampel i'm a guy from sweden i'm in a relationship whit a girlfrom the United states... luckaly we are very much alike and dont realy have much problem but i can see this as a problem.

My brother is 36 have wo children and a 12 year relationship whit his GF... i'm just woundering where do you draw the line of abstinense?

If your adults and sence the leagal age is difrent in sweden and the us i'll say 22 years old... if you ahve not be told in your home or in school about protection and so forth... how are you suposed to know... to me the problem now developing whit a abstinence only polecy is that it's hurting ALOT more in long term in short term i think it could help you can keep down things for a short whiel by controle and holding back on contraseptivs but in a few years...

What about when your when the 13 year old turn 18 in 5 years and they dont know anything about condoms or the pill and i dont think parents will be in the same position to comand the practis of abstinence to the 18 year old.

and lastly i think this is a shame especialy becase it agine strike aginest the young girls out there... i'm 100% sure that if men was the ones getting pregnant contraseptics would be shoved in to the girls and guy pockets ones they hit pubetry.

Women get pregnant the guys do not, your the ones who risk this not the guys so it's easy for men (and i bet my life that this is something men thought up) to favor abstinence they are not the one that get acsidentaly pregnant during the teen years... they dont get hurt by this...

Boys and girls ones they start getting hormones running threw there bodies are going to want to do things... some faster and more the others... it's not the same whit every one... only way to work is to teach about sex vividly show them that this is not something to be a shamed about...

and all that we as a society teach our children is that it is wrong and they should not do it before they are married... we are going to hurt them more then we are ever going to help them.

And to end up... to something i think most can agree on sex is a large part of any relationship... it's not everything but thingk of it in revers what if all you could do was have sex and you could not talk to one another untill you got married... you would not realy know your partner... i think sex is the same way...

and i'm babbeling off whit out end i apolagice

What parent reads medical journals to see what the best way to talk to their own child about sex is?

Oh wait...I forgot, it's not the parent's job to teach sex ed anymore.

__________________
Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another.

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

Complete surrender should not just come at moments in which one faces overwhelming odds, but in the calm when it seems one is personally in complete control of one's life.

I'm a research nerd and would read everything I could so as not to scar my kids (but yes, PF! They would be scarred just being in my womb! HA HA! I beat you to it!). When I got the dog, I read a ton of books to see what the best way to train him would be . . . again, I might be missing a WI point, though.

Penthouse doesn't print medical journals, Steph.

__________________
Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another.

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

Complete surrender should not just come at moments in which one faces overwhelming odds, but in the calm when it seems one is personally in complete control of one's life.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

I'm never having kids then!

No, but they do print Penthouse Forum.

/me learned a lot about sex from that magazine

__________________
Put me on wheels and I'll turn tricks.

Clever? Nah, I ran out of that years ago. But if you find this, let me know, k?
"The road goes ever on..." ~ Tolkien

In memory of my friend skip...
Go then, there are other worlds than these

Exactly...a place not known for preaching abstinence! lmfao

I liked magazines too!

like this one

__________________
Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another.

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

Complete surrender should not just come at moments in which one faces overwhelming odds, but in the calm when it seems one is personally in complete control of one's life.

__________________
Put me on wheels and I'll turn tricks.

Clever? Nah, I ran out of that years ago. But if you find this, let me know, k?
"The road goes ever on..." ~ Tolkien

In memory of my friend skip...
Go then, there are other worlds than these

That's sooooooooooooooooooooooo freaking wrong! I was an ag reporter for the last paper I wrote for and I don't know what an alpaca is -- some kind of llama maybe. I want to know about your girlfriends before you post pics, WI!