Texas: Survey Says Parents Back Sex Ed Beyond Abstinence

A small survey of parents in inner-city and rural parts of Bexar County has found that 80 percent of them believe children should be taught about condoms and birth control as early as the middle school years.

Researchers from the Metropolitan Health District and the University of Texas Health Science Center polled 126 parents of middle- and high-school students attending community youth events in low-income neighborhoods. The parents were asked to choose between abstinence-only instruction, which discusses condoms and contraceptives only in light of their failure rates, and abstinence-plus, which teaches the benefits of condoms and contraceptives as well as their risk of failure. Eighty percent of parents favored abstinence-plus, 13 percent abstinence only, and 7 percent neither.

"What we found is the vast majority of parents really want us to include positive information about contraceptives and condoms," said lead author Dr. Janet Realini, medical director of Project WORTH, a sex education program operated by the health district. In their presentations to local schools, project educators stress abstinence as the healthiest choice for teens. But they also provide information on family planning and reinforce the idea that condoms must be used consistently to reduce the risk of pregnancy and STDs.

The Texas Education Code stipulates that abstinence must be the core message for all school-based sex education programs, but it lets districts decide for themselves whether, and when, to teach students about condoms and birth control. San Antonio's three largest districts, Northside, San Antonio and North East, all include abstinence-plus instruction in high school health classes. Bexar County has one of the nation's highest rates of teen pregnancy.

Back to other news for March 29, 2006