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Recently, findings were released on the first national study of four common sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among girls and young women. The staggering finding is that one in four is infected with at least one of the diseases. That means that 3.2 million teenage women are infected with at least one STD mentioned in this study. Nearly half the African-Americans in the study of teenagers ages 14 to 19 were infected with at least one of the diseases monitored in the study—human papillomavirus (HPV), Chlamydia, genital herpes and trichomoniasis (a common parasite). (That 50% figure compares with 20% for white teenagers.) The two most common STDs among all participants tested were HPV (18%) and Chlamydia (4%). Among those tested, 15% had more than one of the STDs. How should we think about this rather significant public health crisis?
- First of all, there is an obvious direct connection between STDs and sexual activity. About 19 million new STD infections occur each year among all age groups in the US. That there is a much higher STD rate among African-American teens is a significant concern and tragedy. What I found most interesting is the conclusion of Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood. She concluded that the study’s results “emphasize the need for real comprehensive sex education. . . The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure and teenage girls are paying the real price.” Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that the findings underscored the need to strengthen screening, vaccination and other prevention measures for the diseases. The CDC naturally focuses on the national health issue and resulting crisis. But Richards, of Planned Parenthood, is focusing on human behavior.
- Second, does this survey demonstrate the failure of abstinence-based education? I doubt it! (1) The brutal facts are simply that we live in a sex-saturated culture. Why would we expect teenagers, whose hormones are raging, to not get caught up in the craze? There is a direct connection between the self-destructive behavior of Eliot Spitzer and the results of this survey. Eliot Spitzer can afford to pay for expensive prostitutes, who presumably are free of STDs. But the average teenager follows the culture’s core value of self-indulgence and STDs result. Spitzer and teens fall prey to the same sinful urge—one resigns from office and one gets an STD. (2) As Christians, the only conclusion we can reach is that sexual activity outside of marriage is not sanctioned by God’s moral law. To ignore that ethic is to court disaster. Hence, the survey’s findings. Teens need a strong supporting community (e.g., the church) to encourage, nurture and hold them accountable. Abstinence is possible but it requires deep-seated convictions rooted in faith and the kind of supporting community that reinforces the ethical standard. In this autonomous culture, that is what is missing. So, it is no surprise that abstinence-based education is not working as well as we wish. Abstinence is the requirement of our God. Wantonly handing out condoms, or believing that education alone is the solution is short-sighted and wrong. Neither will solve the systemic issue of sin that is at the heart of the STD crisis in our nation. We can ignore this fact and it will get worse, or we can confront this fact and begin to come up with meaningful solutions, where the school, the state and the religious communities collaborate and work together. May God in His grace enable us to do so!
See the news report by Lawrence Altman in the New York Times (12 March 2008).
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