Utah Should Include Both Abstinence, Contraception Education In Schools, Editorial Says

"Facts are sometimes the first casualty in the abortion debate," a Salt Lake Tribune editorial says. An example of this came during a January committee hearing in the Utah Legislature over a bill (H.B. 90) that would raise criminal penalties for performing illegal abortions and change the definition of viability, according to the editorial. The state Legislature approved the bill, which now is before Gov. Jon Huntsman (R). During the January hearing, state Rep. Stephen Sandstrom (R) said that nationwide statistics show that "'the vast majority of abortions happen to middle-age women,'" who "'know about birth control,'" the editorial states. Sandstrom also said that abortion "'doesn't have anything to do with teaching abstinence in the schools,'" the editorial says.

According to the editorial, "Sandstrom was flat wrong, not least about the age of the 'vast majority' of women who obtain abortions performed in Utah." The editorial notes that 2007 data from the state Department of Health's Center for Health Data show that of the 3,516 abortions in Utah that year, the largest number was among teens, while the next highest number was among women ages 20 to 24. "Together, these two youngest cohorts accounted for 65% of the abortions" in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available, the editorial says, adding, "So much for middle-age women."

It continues, "Because most women who have abortions are young, we continue to believe that one of the surest ways to reduce the number of abortions is through comprehensive sex education in the public schools that includes instruction about contraception." However, a bill proposing such curriculum "went nowhere in this year's legislative session," the editorial says. Although "Utah's abstinence-only sex education is correct when it teaches that not having sex before marriage is the certain way to prevent pregnancy, it also is clear that that message is not persuading many young people," according to the editorial. It adds that leaving young people "ignorant of the knowledge to protect against conception and disease from sex outside of marriage is both cruel and unrealistic," as well as "bad public health policy." It concludes, "Abstinence is one way to prevent abortion. Contraception is another. Utah should teach both" (Salt Lake Tribune, 3/19).


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