UTAH: Should Utah Revise Sex Ed?

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

UTAH: Should Utah Revise Sex Ed?

Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City) (12.09.07) - Wednesday, December 19, 2007
James Thalman

The latest figures from the Utah Department of Health indicate that 18 of the 61 regions tracked by the agency have higher teen birthrates than the national average, at a time when the US average is on the rise. According to the department, the highest rates are in Rose Park, with a rate of 96.5 per 1,000 teens; downtown Ogden with 83 per 1,000; and Glendale at 79.8 per 1,000.

Sex education in Utah, which is funded in part by federal abstinence grants, focuses on involving parents in a public dialogue about teen pregnancy.

The ability of teens to get accurate information about sex has narrowed considerably since the rise of the abstinence-only movement, said Missy Larsen, executive director of the Planned Parenthood Action Council. "These kinds of statistics force us to ask ourselves if we are doing the best for our young people to help them prevent unintended pregnancies and to arm themselves against these diseases that could prevent them from ever having children," she said.

"Kids want to talk about [sex] and they overwhelmingly want to talk about it with parents," said Larsen. "If we can have a comprehensive approach with abstinence as the foundation and provide medically reliable information about contraception, we would be doing the most we can do to keep teens healthy."
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