Teen pregnancy may be down but STI's are rising
Canadians are busy congratulating themselves on a new study that shows a dramatic decline in the rate of teen pregnancies.
The study from the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada, based on Statistics Canada figures, found that teen pregnancies decreased by nearly 37 per cent nationally and 35 per cent in British Columbia in the 10-year period between 1996 and 2006.
The U.S. Teen birth rate was nearly double that of Canada, with England's only close behind. Researchers and health educators and associating the decline with a better availability to sexual health information and education. The U.S. Still strongly focuses on abstinence-only sex-ed programs, which while they may delay the age in which teen engage in sexual activity have actually been shown to lower contraceptive use.
“Generally speaking”, says Alex McKay one of the authors of the study, “What you find is that the more a society has an accepting attitude toward the reality of adolescent sexuality, the lower the teen pregnancy rate is. Canadians tend to have a more relaxed attitude towards adolescent sexuality than people in the United States.”
While it may be true that Canadians are more relaxed than our southern neighbours, our attitudes towards teen sexuality and sex education are still strongly divided to say the least. In April, Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty completely caved to religious and extremist group pressure and reversed his endorsement of a new comprehensive sexual education curriculum by pulling the plug.
This frighteningly inconsistent approach across the country to sexual education has lend to a country wide increase in STI's. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 19 million new STD infections occur every year. And, even more alarming, is that nearly 50 percent of these new cases happen to young people between the ages of 15 and 24
A June 2009 Winnipeg Regional Health Authority report found there is "no consistent" education about Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI's) in Winnipeg schools and stated it as a possible reason in the alarmingly increasing rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia amongst teens in Manitoba.
Syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease that was virtually wiped out (or at least under tight control) as been making a comeback, resulting in an increase in cases each of the last six years, reports the Centers for Disease Control and gonorrhea, another disease that had been becoming rare, is on the rise again and in danger of becoming a “super bug”.
Increases like these show that there is still something fundamentally missing from supposedly superior sex education. Teens need stronger and more comprehensive education about how to protect themselves from STI's not just pregnancies.
25% of all girls between the ages of 14 and 19 in Canada have been infected with at least one of the most common STIs. These included human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus, and trichomoniasis. The spread of all these diseases, some of which cannot be cured with antibiotics, can be reduced with safer sex practices.