ADVOCATES FOR YOUTH

Rights. Respect. Responsibility.^®

Remarks by James Wagoner, President, Advocates for Youth
Advocates for Youth's 20th Anniversary Conference
Washington, DC, December 2, 2001

The words of my young colleagues echo Robert F. Kennedy's classic call for social change, "Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not."

At Advocates for Youth, we have seen what could be in adolescent sexual health and asked, why not?

Why not a society where young people are valued more than stereotyped, prized as assets rather than discounted as liabilities, where partnership connotes commitment rather than lip service?

Why not a society where sexuality is viewed as a normal, positive aspect of being human, of being alive, rather than as forbidden fruit to be locked away in a fortress of shame, fear, and denial?

Why not a society where public policy is based on science and research rather than politics and ideology masquerading as public health?

Why not a society where values, morality, and character are used to infuse sexuality with meaning—with its truly human dimension—rather than misused to deny young people information that could one day save their very lives.

Why not a new vision for adolescent sexual health—a fresh approach, a bold direction?

Is our society too timid to reach for such a vision?

Are the experts too pessimistic about the prospects for dramatic progress in our field?

Are politicians cowed by the threat of controversy—or intimidated by what beltway pundits love to call "an adversarial policy environment?"

Are activists tired and defensive because they have spent so many years responding to the myths, distortions, and fears spread by those who would rather see young people's health in jeopardy than their own misplaced moral superiority challenged?

These are questions I've asked myself over the years I've worked in the field of reproductive health. But every time I pause to wonder, I think about a master innovator like Michael Carrera, a trailblazer like Sol Gordon, a passionate educator like Susan Wilson, a leader like Debra Haffner, or a visionary like Advocates' own Barbara Huberman, and others who have never, ever stopped reaching for the stars.

Or I attend a briefing with youth activists from Campfire USA's Speak Out Project, as I did recently in San Diego—youth leaders going door to door in their communities making the case for comprehensive sexuality education in their schools.

Adults and young people—in partnership—making change. Refusing to rest pat with the status quo. Fighting to make room for a better way.

And, folks, we do need a better way.

You know the painful, exasperating litany.

Every hour of every day, 425 young people contract a sexually transmitted infection, 100 become pregnant, and two contract HIV. Yet, seventy percent of school-based health centers are prohibited by state and local laws from dispensing contraceptives, and only 418 out of 20,000 American high schools have condom availability programs.

The American Medical Association goes on record supporting condom availability and, in Florida, a high school valedictorian is refused her right to make a commencement address because she had the audacity to place condoms in the prom bags of her senior class.

In Riverside, California, a local school board votes not to inform young people about the confidentiality of sexual health services despite the fact that confidentiality is the cornerstone of these services which prevent 360,000 teen pregnancies and 180,000 teen abortions nationwide each year.

Thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth face a daily diet of isolation and abuse, and those who extend a respectful helping hand are demonized as promoters of deviant lifestyles.

Bob Dole spearheads ad campaigns that tout Viagra and the sexual attributes of Brittany Spears while his party's platform calls for shifting all federal family planning dollars into a just-say-no-to-sex campaign for America's youth.

A show like "Temptation Island" is a smash hit, but condoms are too controversial for prime time advertising.

The Surgeon General of the United States, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Institute of Medicine all go on record stating that young people need information about abstinence and contraception—yet, one-third of school districts and the U.S. Congress devote millions to abstinence-only programs that prohibit information about contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and disease.

Is it just me, or do these cultural and policy contradictions drive you crazy as well?

Oh, yes, there's got to be a better way.

For some inspiration, Advocates for Youth has looked at three countries that do a dramatically better job than we do helping young people protect their sexual health, and we've asked ourselves some basic questions.

Why is the Dutch teen birth rate 11 times lower than the U.S. teen birth rate?

Why do French teens have 74 times less the gonorrhea rate than our teens?

Why is the German teen abortion rate 8 times lower than in the U.S.?

How do they do it? What's the magic formula? Is it due to the fact that their public health policy is based on research and science rather than relying on the political or "moral" agendas of a strident minority? Or maybe it's their sexual health mass media campaigns that boast a single, consistent message—safer sex or no sex. Perhaps the answer lies in their public health system that makes contraception available at little or no expense or in the large-scale social investments they make in youth.

We discovered these countries don't have a "silver bullet"—a single program or policy that accounts for their success. The mass media campaigns, the public health systems, and social investment policies all play a role in this story.

But their success doesn't rest on programs and services alone. It is the societal thinking—the norms—that makes the success possible. It is the openness and pragmatic acceptance that the vast majority of young people will have intimate sexual relationships prior to marriage and that these relationships play a key developmental role in becoming a sexually healthy adult.

It is the determination to present sexual expression as a balance—as a normal, healthy part of growing up—and a responsibility to make good decisions that protect themselves and others. It is the respect these societies have for adolescents, valuing them as partners in prevention.

In these countries, government and society view accurate information and confidential services, not merely as needs, but as rights of adolescents.

In short, the adults in these countries spend less time and effort trying to prevent young people from having sex before they are married and more time and effort in educating and empowering young people to behave responsibly when they do become sexually active.

They appear to have an unwritten social contract which states, "We'll respect your rights to information, privacy, and services; in return, you'll take the steps you need to make responsible choices—to avoid pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Is this a formula, as some would have us believe, for lax morality and promiscuity? Hardly. The young people in the countries we visited commence sexual intercourse at the same time or even later than U.S. teens according to the most recent data, and they have fewer sexual partners than their U.S. counterparts.

At Advocates for Youth, we have taken the lessons learned from this more pragmatic, honest, and open approach, adapted them to conditions here in the U.S., and dubbed them the "3Rs" of sexual health—Rights. Respect. Responsibility.^®  

They are the theme of this conference and of a nationwide campaign to get America over its discomfort talking about sex, so that we can finally get real about adolescent sexuality and more effectively prevent early pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV/AIDS.

The 3Rs campaign aims to put honest sexuality education in our schools, help parents talk more openly with their children about sexuality, and get politicians to follow the research on what really works.

The first concrete goal of this campaign is to shift our national policy from abstinence-only-until-marriage to a comprehensive approach that includes messages about abstinence and contraception.

And, folks, this should be your classic "no brainer." First, the research. The AMA, the Academy of Pediatrics, and the Surgeon General of the United States have all reviewed the research and reached the same conclusion.

Young people need messages about abstinence to help them postpone sexual intercourse and about contraception so that they are motivated to protect themselves when they eventually become sexually active. Sexuality education is not an either/or proposition.

But, if the major research and medical organizations support comprehensive sexuality education—and the Institute of Medicine calls for the elimination of public funding for abstinence-only programs—why do more than one-third of local school districts around the country have these policies? Why has Congress doubled the federal budget for these programs?

In short, why are these programs still being funded, and what are we going to do about it?

In my view, there are three major reasons that the abstinence-only-until-marriage movement has been so successful.

First, there is nothing that appeals to some politicians more than a simple solution to a complex problem. By supporting abstinence-only, politicians can ignore some of the deeper causes of teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and other STDs—conflicting social norms, limited access to services, and a failure to invest in young people.

Second, we invest a lot of money in science and research—but, when it comes to public policy, politicians feel free to ignore it when it fails to comport with their views. The Journal of the American Medical Association got it right when they editorialized that the success of abstinence-only education represents the ultimate triumph of ideology over empirical science.

The third reason is that proponents of abstinence-only have done a good job of confusing abstinence, which Americans in large number support—for very good reasons—and abstinence-only education, which censors information about contraception—something the vast majority of Americans do not support.

But, oftentimes, the debate never gets beyond our own discomfort with the subject matter, itself—SEX—as this video clip from "King of the Hill" demonstrates.

OK, Hank Hill may be beyond reach—at least for now —but millions of American parents and hundreds of policy makers are not. So, how do we proceed?

First, we need to reframe the debate. The choice is not abstinence versus contraception. We choose both, because young people need both—because censoring information doesn't protect young people's health, and education does. Because ignorance in the era of AIDS costs lives.

Second, we need to offer a legislative alternative in Congress to the national policy of abstinence-only. As a star Washington lobbyist once said, "You can't beat something with nothing."

Next month, legislation will be introduced in Congress that will challenge the abstinence-only monopoly on federal support for sexuality education. It will champion young people's right to medically accurate information about sexuality including information about the effective use of contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and disease. We need to ensure that the introduction of this legislation ignites a national debate about the need for comprehensive sexuality education.

That's our job. All of us in this room need to reach out to key audiences—parents, clergy, medical professionals, and other public health advocates—in order to foster change at the federal and local level.

Responsible, realistic sexuality education is a cornerstone of our Rights. Respect. Responsibility.^® campaign, but there are other goals.

A second goal of this campaign is to fight for the implementation of the Surgeon General's Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior. That report not only called for comprehensive sexuality education in our nation's schools, improved access to services to address disparities in health status, and increased funding for research and evaluation, but it also called for a national dialogue on sexuality to break what the Surgeon General calls the "code of silence" on sexuality in our culture.

Central to breaking that silence is parents talking more effectively to their children about sexuality. Do we have a problem here? Apparently, we do. Parents say they need help in having these conversations with their children. Children say they want to hear from their parents and don't hear from them as often as parents think they are communicating about sex. How can this "parent-child communication disconnect" occur?

Let's check in on Dan Connor and DJ from "Rosanne," and see how a couple of Y-chromosomes handle that thorny topic that cost Joycelyn Elders her job—masturbation.

It's funny because it's true! We've got to change all that. The research has demonstrated the importance of parent-child connectedness. Communication is the glue. We adults need to find our voice; we need to talk early and often about sexuality in a positive, open, honest way. It's our job to connect the dots for our children between sexuality and health, sexuality and pleasure, sexuality and character. If we want our children to make responsible decisions, we need to provide them not merely with accurate medical information but also with values that can serve as anchors as they navigate the real world—physical and emotional—of adolescent sexuality.

And we've got to give our young people some respect. Too often, as adults, we don't give the state of adolescence much credibility. We trust and value the child entering adolescence and joyfully await the mature adult who will emerge from adolescence, but we treat with fear and suspicion the stage of adolescence, itself, where young people are defined by their risk factors rather than their assets. As a result, we tend to devalue their thoughts, experiences, and needs. It's difficult to take people seriously when you believe that their real value lies in what they will become rather than who they are.

We need to fight the caricature of adolescents as mere hormone-driven accidents waiting to happen. We won't communicate effectively if we believe from the outset that young people are constitutionally incapable of making rational, responsible decisions about sexuality! They can. Our job is to help provide the tools—information, communication, real-world context, values.

The third goal of our 3Rs campaign is to mobilize young people themselves as advocates for the programs and policies that will help shape their lives.

Youth-adult partnerships can be the bridge to involving young people in program research and development, implementation, and evaluation. The youth voice also needs to be heard on the policy front, given the reciprocal relationship between responsibility and rights in our society.

When we demand responsible sexual behavior, we need to respect young people's rights to information and confidential services.

It all sounds easy. But, as you all know, it is not. For youth-adult partnerships to work, both sides need to listen, to respect one another's perspective, to communicate honestly and directly.

And here comes the real tough part for adults—to share power. To expand the youth role from mere implementer to conceptualizer, priority setter, resource allocator.

But when we do the work, these partnerships pay off and allow us to reap the rewards of youth participation—programs fit the audience, policies promote as well as protect adolescent health, and adults perceive young people as active leaders, not passive victims.

The fourth and final goal of our 3Rs campaign is to impact entertainment media. In collaboration with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, our Los Angeles Media Project works with writers and producers to fashion more realistic and responsible portrayals of adolescent sexuality.

We all know the statistics—twenty-plus hours per week watching television. When we talk about shifting norms from a negative to a positive approach to sexuality, media is a major player.

And, under the dynamic leadership of our Media Project director, Robin Smalley, we're having real success with shows like "Judging Amy," "Dawson's Creek," "Ally McBeal," and—as this clip from "Felicity" shows, there's even some good sexuality education occurring over the airways.

Again, it's funny, relevant, direct, positive. It's also respectful and responsible. When it comes to shifting norms, young people and adults pay more attention to their favorite characters in real life situations than to politicians and ideologues on soapboxes.

Well, there you have it. The goals of this campaign—honest sexuality education in our schools, implementation of the Surgeon General's call to action, empowering youth as leaders, and working with the media as a vehicle for social change.

My question to you this morning is, will you join us?

There is so much you can do. Visit our campaign web site, where you can engage in campaign activities; download posters, fact sheets, and other educational materials; sign petitions; and contact local, state, and federal policy makers.

And there is more. Stand up for what you know is right. Cry foul when politics masquerades as public health, when hypocrisy wears the mask of faith, and ideology wages war on common sense.

Refuse to allow young people to become pawns in this nation's culture wars or to be reduced to demeaning stereotypes.

It's a lot. But we can do it—day by day. I've mentioned some of the visionaries in our field—they can help guide us; the contradictions in our culture—they can fuel our determination; and the young people who will be our partners—they will inspire us and replenish our ranks.

Rights. Respect. Responsibility.^® Core American values. Let's make it happen!

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