During the closing days of the Oklahoma Legislature in May, a little-noticed, $500,000 abstinence education appropriation, attached to an expansion of the state children's health insurance program, was approved.

SB 424 calls for the state Department of Health to contract with community- and faith-based organizations to expand the national Postponing Sexual Involvement (PSI) for Young Teens program. Sen. Brian Crain (R-Tulsa), who attached the amendment, said while the state is helping children without health insurance, it should also do something about reducing teenage pregnancies.

Though its rate has dropped significantly over the past three decades, Oklahoma ranks eighth in the nation in the number of babies born to females ages 15-19. Statewide, 56 babies are born for every 1,000 teens, compared to 41 nationally. Among adolescents who become teen mothers, 60 percent were not using birth control at the time of conception.

The measure targets counties with the highest teen birth rates, along with other factors such as poverty, low birth weights, and crime.

PSI originated at Atlanta's Emory University; the basic program does not include contraception instruction. It uses high school teens to role-play in classes taught at the middle-school level. The five-unit curriculum is designed to help teens learn to cope and resist social and peer pressures to become sexually active at early ages.

PSI has received national praise because surveys among teens who were enrolled indicate that they delayed sexual activity for up to 18 months; however, its long-term effect has been questioned.

Sharon Rodine, youth initiatives director for the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, which is currently administering a PSI health department contract, said she believes abstinence education is best taught as an add-on to human sexuality classes that discuss STDs and contraception.

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