Most U.S. states saw a dramatic drop in their teen birth rates between 2007 and 2011, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control. The national rate of teen births declined by 25 percent, and some individual states saw their rates drop by 30 percent or more:

Every single state except for West Virginia and North Dakota showed some kind of decline in the number of teenagers giving birth. But significant regional disparities remain. The CDC found that the lowest rates of teen births are in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont — which each have rates under 17 births per 1,000 teen girls — while Arkansas and Mississippi have the highest rates at about 50 per 1,000. Overall, the highest rates of teen births continue to be concentrated in the South.

The CDC’s research builds on previous data that showed the United States’ teen pregnancy rate has plunged to record lows since 1991, largely because of adolescents’ expanded access to contraception. “Credit goes to teens themselves who are clearly making better decisions about sex, contraception, and their future,” Bill Albert, the chief program officer of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, told the Associated Press.

But those type of preventative health resources aren’t equally available to teens in every part of the country. Over the past decade, teen pregnancy rates have consistently been higher in Southern states that don’t provide students with adequate sexual health instruction. Since abstinence-only courses often present misleading information about contraception, a full 60 percent of young adults underestimate birth control’s effectiveness and are more likely to skip it because they don’t believe it will make a difference. And teens in rural areas still struggle to access contraception, partly because there are fewer health clinics in less populous places and partly because a societal stigma surrounding teen sexuality still pervades conservative communities.

Unfortunately, this correlation isn’t limited to teen pregnancy and teen births. Southern states that don’t offer comprehensive sex ed classes also have the highest rates of STDs.

As the United States has continued to grapple with addressing its teen pregnancy rates — which are higher than the rates in any other developed nation — there has been some debate over the best tactic to effectively lower the rate of unintended teen births. Public health campaigns to dissuade adolescents from becoming pregnant typically rely on shame-based tactics that tell young women they will be failures if they become pregnant. But there’s evidence to suggest that providing youth with the support they need through community programs, rather than shaming them about their sexuality, is actually a more effective way to encourage them to make healthy sexual choices.

Elizabeth Smart became a household name after she was kidnapped from her home in Salt Lake City, UT at the age of 14 and held in captivity for nine months. She was forced into a polygamous marriage, tethered to a metal cable, and raped daily until she was rescued from her captors nine months later. Smart was recovered while she and her kidnappers were walking down a suburban street, leading many Americans who followed her story on the national news to wonder: Why didn’t she just run away as soon as she was brought outside?

Speaking to an audience at Johns Hopkins about issues of human trafficking and sexual violence, Smart recently offered an answer to that question. She explained that some human trafficking victims don’t run away because they feel worthless after being raped, particularly if they have been raised in conservative cultures that push abstinence-only education and emphasize sexual purity:

Smart said she “felt so dirty and so filthy” after she was raped by her captor, and she understands why someone wouldn’t run “because of that alone.”

Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”

Now in her mid-twenties, Smart runs a foundation to help educate children about sexual crimes. She now believes that children should grow up learning that “you will always have value and nothing can change that.”

Social psychologists and sexual abuse counselors agree that comprehensive sex education can help prevent sexual crimes. Teaching children about their bodies gives them the tools to describe acts of abuse without feeling as embarrassed or uncomfortable, and it also helps elevate their self-confidence and sense of bodily autonomy. A shame-based approach to genitalia and sexuality, on the other hand, sends kids the message that they can’t discuss or ask questions about any of those issues.

Nonethless, abstinence-only education programs have a long history of imparting harmful messages that shame youth about their sexuality instead of teaching them the facts they need to safeguard their health. A high school in West Virginia recently made national headlines after hosting a conservative religious speaker who allegedly told students “if you take birth control, your mother probably hates you” and “I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you’re going to be promiscuous.” In Smart’s home state of Utah — which is home to a large religiously conservative Mormon community — sex education is currently mandated, but lawmakers have repeatedly pushed to weaken the state law and reinstate an abstinence-only curriculum.

As George Washington High School’s student vice body president, Katelyn Campbell believes it’s her responsibility to stand up for her classmates. That’s why, when her public school’s administrators brought a conservative religious speaker to advocate for “God’s plan for sexual purity” at a mandatory assembly, the West Virginia teen began to speak out against the “slut-shaming” messages that she doesn’t want at her school. Now, after Campbell’s story has inspired strangers from around the country to offer their support to her cause, she has a message for other teens: Don’t give up the fight for comprehensive sex ed.

“No one should have to feel alone or afraid of repercussions for doing the right thing,” Campbell told ThinkProgress. “If I was able to succeed in the socially-conservative state of West Virginia, then anyone can.”

In Campbell’s conservative community, she did face some opposition after voicing her opposition to the dangerous misinformation perpetrated by abstinence-only education. Her high school principal, George Aulenbacher, threatened to call the college where she’s been accepted to tell them about her “bad character” after she began speaking to the press. At a Board of Education meeting this past Thursday to address the brewing controversy, three people spoke on behalf of Campbell and a staggering 37 people spoke against her. A Facebook group emerged in support of Campbell’s principal.

But Campbell has stood strong — seeking an injunction against Aulenbacher to protect her First Amendment rights, as well as calling for his resignation — and her efforts are having an impact. At last week’s board meeting, the President of the School Board acknowledged that he believes “stricter scrutiny” should be applied to the speakers who are invited to speak at GW High School. Campbell and her fellow students have presented their case about Aulenbacher, and a hearing this week will determine his future. And Campbell’s story has struck a nerve with the thousands of people who have reached out to her to express their support.

At first, Campbell was surprised at all of the positive responses she received after her story went public. “I’ve gotten hundreds of messages from people across the country that thank me for sticking up for myself — some have even used the word ‘hero’ — which still hasn’t sunken in,” she said in an interview with ThinkProgress.

Read more

Ohio lawmakers failed to advance an amendment to the state budget that would have prohibited sex ed classes from including any instruction of “gateway sexual activity” under penalty of a potential $5,000 fine. News of the provision sparked outrage earlier this week, particularly since banning any health materials that might “condone” sexual contact doesn’t have much to do with the state’s economic policy.

However, that doesn’t mean Ohio Republicans have dedicated themselves to focusing solely on the state’s finances. The state budget also contains a provision to defund Planned Parenthood — the third time that lawmakers have attempted to strip funding from the national organization within the past year alone — that the House successfully advanced on Thursday. If it ultimately becomes law, it will “re-distribute” the family planning dollars that used to go to Planned Parenthood to right-wing crisis pregnancy centers that don’t provide the same types of reproductive health services.

Even after Katelyn Campbell’s principal allegedly threatened her for speaking out against a “slut-shaming” abstinence assembly recently held at her public high school, the West Virginia teen refused to back down. Her brave stance against the dangerous misinformation perpetrated by abstinence-only education, as well as her perseverance in the face of opposition from the school’s officials, has inspired thousands of people across the country to stand behind the high school senior in support.

After George Washington High School hosted conservative religious speaker Pam Stenzel to advocate for “God’s plan for sexual purity” at a mandatory assembly, Campbell notified the ACLU. Once the press began taking interest in the situation, Campbell’s principal wasn’t pleased — in fact, she says he threatened to call Wellesley College, where she has been accepted to study in the fall, to tell them that Campbell is a “backstabber” who has “bad character.” That threat ended up badly backfiring. Here’s what has unfolded over the past several days:

Wellesley College released public statements welcoming Campbell to campus in the fall. After news broke that Katelyn’s principal allegedly suggested he planned to call Wellesley to complain about Katelyn, a spokesperson for the college provided the following statement to ThinkProgress: “Wellesley College is delighted to welcome Katelyn Campbell as a member of the Class of 2017 this fall. The Wellesley community fosters a living and learning environment where diverse opinions, ideas, and perspectives are not only welcomed, they are encouraged.” The academic institution also welcomed Katelyn with supportive messages on Twitter and Facebook.

A Wellesley College alumni group started a petition to applaud Campbell. A group called the Wellesley Sisters began a petition on Change.org to let Campbell know she’ll fit right on in campus in the fall. “In reality, your actions prove that the College couldn’t be a better fit,” the petition reads. “At Wellesley you will find students just like you: strong, independent, intelligent women who speak their minds and work to make the world a more just and equitable place.” It currently has over 1,200 signatures.

Fellow students formed a Facebook page called “Friends of Katelyn Campbell.” The Facebook page has been verifying some of the complaints that Campbell took to the ACLU, including an image of the religious flyer used to promote the event at the public high school. It has since extended beyond West Virginia, as people across the country have flooded the page with messages of solidarity. “Katelyn is an inspiration to anyone who treasures the First Amendment and values honor and courage,” reads one recent post from an ally in Indiana.

Students attended a local school board meeting this week to advocate on behalf of Campbell. On Thursday night, students took up the issue with the school board. Campbell’s lawyer advised her not to attend, but other advocates represented her point of view on her behalf. According to an update on the “Friends of Katelyn Campbell” page, the meeting was not necessarily productive. “Unfortunately, as was to be expected, Katelyn’s message continued to be chastised this evening,” the update stated. “Speakers on her behalf were berated to the point of tears, and one board member broke protocol to burst out that there needed to be more god in school and that Pam Stenzel ‘should speak in all schools.’ ”

Strangers submitted letters of support after reading Campbell’s story. After publishing a story about Campbell earlier this week, ThinkProgress has been contacted by numerous people commending the teen’s actions and requesting her contact information to share letters of support. One reader was inspired to write an open letter that he intends to deliver to Campbell’s principal. “I wanted to congratulate you and your institution for producing such an accomplished student,” the letter reads. “Surely you must feel privileged to know that you have presided over the education and awakening of such an student as accomplished as Campbell.”

A West Virginia high school student is filing an injunction against her principal, who she claims is threatening to punish her for speaking out against a factually inaccurate abstinence assembly at her school. Katelyn Campbell, who is the student body vice president at George Washington High School, alleges her principal threatened to call the college where she’s been accepted to report that she has “bad character.”

George Washington High School recently hosted a conservative speaker, Pam Stenzel, who travels around the country to advocate an abstinence-only approach to teen sexuality. Stenzel has a long history of using inflammatory rhetoric to convince young people that they will face dire consequences for becoming sexually active. At GW’s assembly, Stenzel allegedly told students that “if you take birth control, your mother probably hates you” and “I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you’re going to be promiscuous.” She also asserted that condoms aren’t safe, and every instance of sexual contact will lead to a sexually transmitted infection.

Campbell refused to attend the assembly, which was funded by a conservative religious organization called “Believe in West Virginia” and advertised with fliers that proclaimed “God’s plan for sexual purity.” Instead, she filed a complaint with the ACLU and began to speak out about her objections to this type of school-sponsored event. Campbell called Stenzel’s presentation “slut shaming” and said that it made many students uncomfortable.

GW Principal George Aulenbacher, on the other hand, didn’t see anything wrong with hosting Stenzel. “The only way to guarantee safety is abstinence. Sometimes, that can be a touchy topic, but I was not offended by her,” he told the West Virginia Gazette last week.

But it didn’t end with a simple difference of opinion among Campbell and her principal. The high school senior alleges that Aulenbacher threatened to call Wellesley College, where Campbell has been accepted to study in the fall, after she spoke to the press about her objections to the assembly. According to Campbell, her principal said, “How would you feel if I called your college and told them what bad character you have and what a backstabber you are?” Campbell alleges that Aulenbacher continued to berate her in his office, eventually driving her to tears. “He threatened me and my future in order to put forth his own personal agenda and make teachers and students feel they cant speak up because of fear of retaliation,” she said of the incident.

Read more

During a debate over Ohio’s budget on Tuesday afternoon, Republicans in the House tacked on an amendment that would prohibit health classes in public schools from including any instruction on “gateway sexual activity,” which encompasses all sexual contact. The budget bill relies on the same definition of “sexual contact” that also appears in the state’s criminal code: “any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast.”

Under the amendment, sex ed classes wouldn’t be permitted to provide students with any information that might “condone” that type of gateway activity. That includes dispensing contraception. The legislation would also empower parents to sue if their children end up receiving this type of sexual instruction, and sex ed teachers could be subject to thousands of dollars in fines:

The sex education addition says that any instruction conducted under the state’s model health education program must not promote “any gateway sexual activity or health message that encourages students to experiment with sexual activity.”

It goes on to prohibit distributing certain materials, conducting demonstrations with “sexual stimulation” devices, or distributing contraception.

If a student receives such instruction, a parent or guardian can sue for damages, and a court may impose a civil fine of up to $5,000.

Ohio isn’t the first state to worry about students being corrupted by learning about “gateway sexual activity.” Almost exactly one year ago, Tennessee Republicans pushed to strengthen their state’s abstinence-only law by defining kissing and hand-holding as gateway activities that could lead teens to engage in sexual intercourse. Of course, whether or not U.S. teenagers are taught abstinence in their health classes, most of them still become sexually active. By their 19th birthday, seven in ten American teens will have had sex.

The “gateway” provision isn’t the only amendment Republicans have added to the budget bill that focuses more on sexual health resources than on the state’s finances. Abortion opponents also successfully pushed for an amendment to the legislation that would defund the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics, and reallocate those family planning dollars to right-wing “crisis pregnancy centers” that don’t actually provide the same kind of health services. This represents the third time in just one year that Ohio Republicans have attempted to strip funding from the national women’s health organization.

Now that Ohio’s House Finance Committee has approved the revisions to the budget bill, it will head to a full House vote later this week, likely on Thursday.

In the first quarter of 2013, states have proposed 694 provisions related to a woman’s body, how she gets pregnant, or how she chooses to end that pregnancy.

A new report released on Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute takes a comprehensive look at how the War on Women has continued past the election cycle and into 2013. It shows that the new legislatures across the country are still very much dedicated to restricting sex education, availability of medication, and abortion access for women. Indeed, 47 percent of the 694 provisions were directly related to abortion:

During the first three months of 2013, legislators in 14 states introduced provisions seeking to ban abortion prior to viability. These bans fall into three categories: measures that would prohibit all abortions, those that would ban abortions after a specified point during the first trimester of pregnancy and those that would block abortions at 20 weeks after fertilization (the equivalent of 22 weeks after the woman’s last menstrual period, the conventional method physicians use to measure pregnancy). All of these proposals are in direct violation of U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Legislators in 10 states have introduced proposals that would ban all, or nearly all, abortions. In eight states (AL, IA, MS, ND, OK, SC, VA and WA), legislators have proposed defining “personhood” as beginning at conception; if adopted, these measures would ban most, if not all, abortions.

Seven states are edging closer to achieving full approval for laws that would reduce or essentially eliminate abortion access.

Enforcing unconstitutional abortion laws isn’t just a threat to women’s rights — it’s also costly to the states caught up in legal battles. Last year, Kansas spent $628,000 defending its unconstitutional abortion restrictions. North Dakota is in the middle of spending $400,000 to defend its ban, and Arkansas is set to do the same.

But if the number of proposed abortion restrictions is discouraging, the upside of the Guttmacher report is that states are moving toward the prevention of unintended pregnancy through sex education: It finds that two states — Montana and North Dakota — are pushing for more restrictive, less informative sex education laws, but that both Colorado and Hawaii are pushing for more comprehensive, inclusive, and scientific sex education for students. Colorado’s would even prohibit abstinence-only instruction, which has been proven to be more harmful than effective. ThinkProgress’s own survey of state legislation has found a total of five states that, like Colorado, are pushing for better sex ed. These findings track with popular opinion that increasingly recognizes the value of sex education.

The right-wing Family Research Council — which uses its advocacy muscle to try to block comprehensive sexual health programs in public schools — is now going a step further, suggesting the young Americans who have premarital sex should be punished because they don’t deserve the right to engage in sexual intercourse.

According to senior FRC fellow Pat Fagan, the Supreme Court’s “first assault on marriage” was a 1972 case that overturned a state law banning unmarried people from purchasing birth control. Fagan claims that court decision effectively sanctioned premarital sex, “brushing aside thousands and thousands of years of wisdom, tradition, [and] culture.” Appearing on a radio show with Tony Perkins, the head of the organization, Fagan asserted that “society never gave young people that right,” and instead has an obligation to stop, punish, and shame that type of sexual behavior:

FAGAN: The court decided that single people have the right to contraceptives. What’s that got to do with marriage? Everything, because what the Supreme Court essentially said is single people have the right to engage in sexual intercourse. Well, societies have always forbidden that, there were laws against it. [...]

It’s not the contraception, everybody thinks it’s about contraception, but what this court case said was young people have the right to engage in sex outside of marriage. Society never gave young people that right, functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever. The institution for the expression of sexuality is marriage and all societies always shepherded young people there, what the Supreme Court said was forget that shepherding, you can’t block that, that’s not to be done.

In fact, a full 80 percent of unmarried evangelical Christians report that they are having sex. Despite the emphasis on abstinence within the evangelical community — a misguided approach to sexuality that typically shames young adults about their bodies, ignores the existence of the LGBT community, and fails to equip adolescents with the resources they need to effectively manage their sexual health — it’s clear that premarital sex is the norm, not something that threatens the very fabric of modern society.

And ignoring the reality that teens are having sex has had serious consequences across the country. The states that push ineffective abstinence-only health classes have higher rates of teen pregnancy, higher rates of STDs, and higher concentrations of HIV infections. Even the evangelical community itself has started to realize that denying teens sexual health resources isn’t working, and has begun to move in the direction of supporting contraception and sex education.

The United States’ teen birth rate has actually recently plunged to a record low — but that wouldn’t be the case if Fagan had his way and unmarried Americans were denied access to birth control. According to the Guttmacher Institute, that decline in unintended teen pregnancies is “almost exclusively” the result of more young people using contraception.

(HT: Right Wing Watch)

2012 was a banner year for new state-level abortion restrictions, yet not a single state enacted a law to improve access to family planning services or comprehensive sex education. Although the nation’s rate of unintended teen pregnancies is dropping, the U.S. still has the highest teen birth rate of any nation in the developed world — yet 26 states still require high school health classes to emphasize ineffective abstinence education, rather than prioritizing comprehensive sexual health instruction that includes accurate information about methods to prevent unintended pregnancy and STD transmission.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any attempts to move the country forward. A national bill to expand access to LGBT-inclusive, gender balanced sex education was recently introduced by 34 Democratic politicians. And on a more localized level, these five states are also taking important steps to help ensure that teenagers have all of the information they need to better understand their bodies and their sexuality:

1. COLORADO: Lawmakers in Colorado are advancing a bill that would move the state away from its current abstinence-only curricula to include comprehensive sexual health instruction, including requiring health classes in public schools to use inclusive language about LGBT issues. As openly gay state Rep. Dominick Moreno (D) argued on the House floor, traditional sex ed programs don’t often have adequate resources to help students who are struggling with their sexuality. Republicans largely opposed the provision of the legislation that would require the state’s sex ed classes to be LGBT-inclusive, and the anti-gay Focus on the Family lobbied hard against the bill — but despite their objections, the measure was approved by the House on Friday.

2. HAWAII: The state’s House Committee on Education is currently considering a measure that would incorporate comprehensive sexual education into all of Hawaii’s public schools. The bill would require Hawaii’s public elementary, middle, intermediate, high, and alternative schools to include medically accurate sexual health instruction in their curricula. Rep. John Mizuno (D), who introduced the measure, pointed out that unintended pregnancies currently cost the state an estimated $22 million each year — and more comprehensive sex ed would be a better investment. “Comprehensive sex education will equip our young people with the knowledge and tools necessary to be conscious of their decisions when it comes to sex,” Rep. Mizuno pointed out.

3. ALABAMA: Alabama’s first openly gay legislator, state Rep. Patricia Todd (D), is doing her best to update the standards for sexual education for the teens in her state. At the beginning of the new legislative session, Todd re-introduced a measure to repeal Alabama’s 1992 abstinence-only education law, an outdated piece of legislation that requires health classes to teach students that homosexuality is illegal. Todd’s bill would put the Department of Education in charge of establishing more comprehensive, medically accurate sex ed classes — an important update, since the state legislature currently sets the standards for sex ed and has the power to turn students’ basic health instruction into a politicized battlefield.

4. ILLINOIS: The Chicago public school system is considering an overhaul of its sexual education program that would require health classes to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity for the first time. The city’s chief health officer notes that if the new policy is enacted, Chicago’s public schools would comprise the largest urban U.S. school district with a required minimum of sex ed instruction and a specific curriculum for each grade level — a move spurred partly by the fact that over half of Chicago teens are sexually active. Under the new program, students below fifth grade would learn about anatomy, healthy relationships, puberty, and HIV transmission. After fifth grade, students would receive age-appropriate, LGBT-inclusive instruction about human reproduction, healthy decision-making, bullying, and contraception.

5. NORTH DAKOTA: Republicans in North Dakota are currently advancing several attacks on women’s health, and at the beginning of this month, it looked like abortion opponents might also successfully block sex ed resources for at-risk youth. After North Dakota State University won a three-year federal grant to partner with Planned Parenthood to provide sexual health services for at-risk teenagers, anti-abortion activists threatened to derail the program simply because Planned Parenthood was participating. The school faced significant pressure to back out of the grant — but fortunately, now that the state’s Attorney General has confirmed that partnering with Planned Parenthood doesn’t actually conflict with state law, the program will be allowed to move forward. University officials are celebrating the victory, which will allow teens between 15 and 19 years old to receive the comprehensive sexual health and family planning resources they need.