By Emese Nemeth
Staff Writer

Due to the increase in teenage pregnancy in West Texas, many schools are looking for a sex education program that works.

Currently, seventh and eighth graders are taught abstinence-only, but with 172 pregnant girls enrolled last year, the message may not be working.

The school board of Midland has decided to implement a new curriculum, one that focuses on abstinence while also teaching students about condoms and other birth control methods. They have named this new program “abstinence-plus.”

Parents and religious groups are objecting because they believe teaching about birth control gives children the permission to have sex or encourages them to do so.

However, Susan Tortoler, Director of the University of Texas’ Prevention Research Center in Houston, told the Tribune that research shows the complete opposite. Teaching about safe sex actually delays sexual initiation. In addition, research also has concluded that abstinence programs are ineffective at preventing teenage pregnancies.

Not only does the rise in teen pregnancy spark change, so does the lack of federal funding under the Obama administration.

During the George W. Bush Administration, school districts were given complete control over how they taught sex education, as long as it was abstinence focused.  A majority of districts teach solely abstinence according to the Texas Freedom Network.

Today, the Obama administration only awards grants to teenage sex education programs that are “evidence-based,” and support for abstinence-only based programs is declining.
Although school districts deny that lack of federal funding played any role in the change in programs, nine districts in Harris County have begun the process of changing to the new curriculum.

It will also help teenagers make the right choice by providing them with accurate information instead of letting teenagers learn through unreliable internet sites and television.

“The more you know about your body, how to make better decisions and choices, the better decisions that adolescents make,” said Tortoler.

However, pastor Ed Ainsworth, Texas’ most prominent abstinence-only supporter, said that the abstinence-plus program made him “a little nervous.”

Ainsworth believes in teaching students all about sex education, which includes “learning about the pitfalls of so called safe sex.” Some of the questions included in the learning material is, “Will a condom protect your heart and reputation?”

With the third highest birth rate in 15-19 year-olds in the nation, these Texas school districts are making a change for the better.