You Can't Buy a Vibrator in Alabama, but Apparently You Can Still Get Contraception

Here is yet another story that lends the lie to the b.s. common wisdom about teens and sex. Particularly these gems:

- teenagers are more promiscuous than they ever have been before
- teenage pregnancy is out of control
- teenagers don't have the sense to use condoms - they think nothing bad will ever happen to them
- abstinence-only education is the best way to keep teenagers from having sex
- parents don't want sex education in the schools

Study after study is proving that none of these things are true. This one from Alabama shows that the teenage pregnancy rate in that state has dropped from a high of over 100 per thousand teenage girls getting pregnant in the early 90's (that's more than 10%, how scary is that?) to less than 68 in 2008. So no, the teenage pregnancy rate there is not increasing, it has dropped dramatically. The study cites the majority of that drop, about 75% of it, owing to increased use of birth control and increased use of multiple methods of birth control. 25% of it is considered to be because of drops in the numbers of teenagers who are having sex. So yes, teenagers can learn to use birth control and they are doing it and no, the numbers of them having sex is not increasing.

Another telling stat that was tracked in this story is the attitudes of parents about sex education. In 2010, 89.3% of parents surveyed in Alabama supported evidence-based sex education in schools. This is supposed to be one of the most conservative states in the union. Where are all of these 'majority' of parents who don't want their kids to learn about sex in school?

This information is in direct opposition to what they're doing in Wisconsin and Utah. Sure, this is Alabama, but can it be all that different?

Here's the link to the story in the Birmingham news:
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/03/alabama_us_teen_pregnancy_rate.html