Contact: Valerie Mosher, Concerned Women for America, 202-488-7000, ext. 126
WASHINGTON, Mar. 18 /Standard Newswire/ -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released 2007 data today reporting that the number of teen births is at a record high. Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, Director and Senior Fellow of Concerned Women for America's (CWA) Beverly LaHaye Institute, asks, "When over two-thirds of public schools (68 percent) teach comprehensive sex education and those programs receive more than four times the amount of federal funding than the amount designated for abstinence programs, it's time to ask Dr. Phil's question, 'How's that working for you?'"
Crouse declares, "The focus on condoms is obviously not working. When leftist ideology leaves so many of our teens pregnant, parents must speak out to the nation's policymakers to demand that our vulnerable young people have the opportunity to hear the truth. Abstinence until marriage is possible and it is desirable. Abstinence programs teach our teenagers self-control and help them gain self-respect. They learn how to say 'no' and they learn to set goals for a bright and promising future."
"Most teens want to get married and have children," said Crouse. "They don't want to short-circuit their potential. Most of the teens that have sex tell pollsters later that they wish that they had waited. If given the opportunity, those teens can learn how to be in control of their future and realize their goals and dreams. Those who tell teens to surrender to their raging hormones as long as they are protected by a condom ought to be there when that teenage girl has to tell her parents that she is pregnant and that her boyfriend is long gone."
Crouse concluded, "Everybody needs to call their Members of Congress to express outrage at the amount of money going to Planned Parenthood and other groups that are promoting comprehensive sex education and spreading falsehoods about the effectiveness of abstinence programs. We need to quit funding groups who give out false information that leaves our teens vulnerable in ways that affect the rest of their lives."
Concerned Women for America is the nation's largest public policy women's organization.