The good news is that the teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. is the lowest it's been since the early '70s, primarily due to teens' increased and improved use of birth control. The bad news is that one million U.S. teens still get pregnant each year, and 78 percent of those pregnancies are unintended. The fact is that most young people in the United States begin having sex in their teens and they need honest and straightforward information about sex in order to protect themselves from unintended pregnancy. Obviously, right? Well, apparently not to President Bush, who asked Congress for a 33% increase in funding for "abstinence-only" sex education, which would forbid teachers to talk about how contraception works or where to get it. Abstinence-only programs keep teens in the dark about sex; they have not been proven to delay or reduce sexual activity, and they fail to provide accurate information about preventing pregnancy and disease.
             Comprehensive sexuality education, on the other hand, teaches that sexuality is a healthy, normal part of a human being. It teaches students about the advantages of abstinence, while also giving them the realistic information they need about the prevention of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Studies show that balanced programs that promote both abstinence and safer sex are most effective and allow young people to make responsible choices. In California, the teen birth rate has dropped more than 40 percent over the last decade. The credit goes to a state-sponsored program that provides information on sexual abstinence and birth control. The teen birth rate has fallen from 11th nationwide in 1991 to 21st in 2002, according to the California Wellness Foundation. California is the only state that refuses to accept federal sex-education money, which requires public schools to teach only sexual abstinence and avoid providing information on contraception. The United States has the highes...