Group hopes to spur action on rate of births to teens

Yet, those stunning figures — which are worse per capita than Mexico, the Ukraine and Romania among a host of other countries — have yet to spur public officials and policymakers into any serious attempts to confront the issue.

Last Thursday night, at the invitation of the Jackson County Teen Pregnancy Coalition, approximately 25 parents and grandparents gathered at the First Baptist Church of Commerce to brainstorm ways by which the tide of babies born to children might be stemmed.

They produced a host of suggestions, ranging from more recreation and mentoring programs to better sex education curricula and more training for public school teachers. But it was clear from the outset that the current focus of prevention efforts — sexual abstinence only - does not resonate with teenagers.

Tamara Freeman, the school nurse for both Jackson County and East Jackson high schools, raised some eyebrows during the “icebreaker” portion of the forum as she talked about sexual activity among high school students.

“The kids tell me they have nothing to do after school,” she said. “They congregate at one house and have sex parties. Everyone switches partners.”

Her two schools, she said, have a total of 19 pregnant students.

Organizers of the event demonstrated the pervasiveness of pressure for sexual activity by placing at each seat copies of articles from magazines popular with teenage girls. All were oriented at being sexy, improving sex or attracting sexual partners.

Both Freeman and Joann Strickland, a former school nurse who works in the Jefferson Clinic of the county health department, stressed that by the time kids come to them for help and advice, they’ve already made one crucial decision: to be sexually active.

“When they come to the Health Department, they’ve made that decision,” Strickland stated.

The pressure is not just on young girls to have sex; boys feel it too. Freeman recounted talking to boys who felt pressured to have sex for fear of either losing their girlfriends or being labeled gay.”

“We have some pushy girls out there,” she commented.

And while all of the school nurses, all of the public health officials and most of the participants agreed that abstinence is the first line of defense, the focus of the Teen Pregnancy Coalition is on the need to deal with the 70 percent of local high school students who are sexually active by the time they graduate.

From ignorance of how the reproductive system works, to urban legends about how sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy can be avoided, to lack of knowledge about readily available birth control methods and products, Jackson County kids are apparently not informed enough to protect themselves when they have sex.

By coincidence, the director of the health district, Dr. Claude Burnett, spoke to the Commerce Kiwanis Club earlier that day on the same topic. He told the group that the average cost to Georgia taxpayers of a birth to a teen mom is $11,000.

“That’s the hospital bill. That’s just the beginning,” he said.

In addition to pregnancies, teen sexual activity has resulted in “an epidemic of chlamydia and gonorrhea,” Burnett advised.

He expressed the opinion that the best hope of reducing the birth to teen rate is through education in public schools. That starts with a written policy in which parents “opt out,” as oppose to “opting in” for their kids, a curriculum that starts in elementary school, and proper training so teachers will be both comfortable and competent discussing sex with students.

“There needs to be a whole lot more condom use,” Burnett added.

The Dec. 11 meeting was the Teen Pregnancy Coalition’s third public forum. Information and ideas from those forums will be considered at the coalition’s monthly meetings, which occur every third Wednesday of the month at 10:00 at the Gordon Street Center in Jefferson.