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Advocates Updates
- Call for Applications: Become a Youth Reporter for the International Year of Youth!
- Urban Retreat 2010
- Press Release: States Face Choice between Failed Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs and New Comprehensive Approach
- Co-Sponsor the Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act of 2010
- Parent-Child Communication: Promoting Sexually Healthy Youth
- Learn more about applying for new federal teen pregnancy prevention funds!
New Publications: 
- Talking points for teen mom Bristol Palin (CNN)
A few thoughts Bill Albert of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy wishes Bristol would add to her stump speech. - HIV is a 20th-century disease that needs 21st-century research (Globe and Mail)
We need smarter approaches to clinical trials that test more concepts in less time, for less money, while preserving safety, community engagement and ethical guidelines - Help for Women Who Are Forced to Get Pregnant (Time)
There may be a simple and cost-effective way to help women who are in danger of being intimidated into pregnancy. - Foursquare offers reward for checking in after STD checkups (Yahoo! News)
The social network that allows members to broadcast their location and activities has joined forces with MTV in an effort to remove the stigma attached with getting screened for sexually transmitted diseases - A tolerance of rape (Washington Post)
In the time that the Justice Department is wasting in rehashing the commission's work, more incarcerated men, women and juveniles will become victims of sexual assault. - Abstinence Survey Stirs Debate (Youth Today)
Newly released report concerns attitudes about pre-marital sex
by Martha Kempner
A couple of weeks ago a study on teen sex was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta and it made headlines in everything from the Associated Press to Bloomberg Businessweek. The headlines varied from: “How Teen Sex Affects Education” to “ Teen sex not always bad for school performance” but all of the articles essentially reported the same thing. Researchers at the University of California, Davis and the University of Minnesota analyzed data on teenagers’ sexual behavior and their educational outcomes and found that having sex as a teen does not necessarily impact a teen’s education. Instead, the important factor is the type of relationship in which teen sex occurs. Specifically, teens who had sex in romantic relationships did not suffer academically whereas teens who had sex in non-romantic relationships did.
Sex education is "poison"? This mother and daughter don't think so.
by Leah Reis-Dennis and Elizabeth ReisEDITOR'S NOTE: When we saw this column in The Washington Times, warning parents about colleges "poisoning" students with information and frank discussion about sex and sexuality, we knew it needed a response. We asked rising Harvard sophomore Leah Reis-Dennis, and her mother Elizabeth Reis, to weigh in. Here's what they said.
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Leah:
In her recent Washington Times piece, "Values a vaccine for poisoned Ivy," Rebecca Hagelin cautions parents with presumably frightening "snapshots of what your child might encounter" at college. Hagelin cites such supposedly alarming campus occurrences as summer reading on multiculturalism, course offerings on feminist theory, and access to condoms. Although Hagelin fears for the preservation of her daughter's Christian and conservative values, she rests assured that the strength of her family's faith and its determination to resist the dominant "liberal Orthodoxy" will prevail.
As a college student about to start my second year at Harvard (an institution which Hagelin would likely label a "poisoned Ivy"), I can vividly recall my college selection process. As I visited campuses, perused pamphlets, and spoke with students, I, like Hagelin's daughter, took time to "investigate the college landscape." In my case, however, a course offering in feminist theory got a thumbs up. Free condom access on campus? All the better! In fact, one might imagine that my mother and I, devoted advocates for feminism and women's rights, are direct opposites of Hagelin and her daughter. Still, if Hagelin's daughter and I were to attend the same college and meet, we would surely learn a lot from each other.
