States with abstinence-only education have higher teen pregnancy rates

BY YURI RESETOVS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The United States government bet on the wrong program to cut down on teenage pregnancies and birth rates. Numerous studies show that teen pregnancies are highest in states where abstinence-only education is standard. The rates dropped in nearly all states and across all racial and ethnic groups.

Released Tuesday, a report by the National Center for Health Statistics showed that the teenage birth rate for American teenagers fell 9 percent from 2009 to 2010. The average national level is 34.3 teenage births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 19. This is the lowest rate in 65 years, since 1946.

Mississippi, again, has the highest rate with 55 births per 1,000 girls, while New Hampshire has the lowest at just under 16 births per 1,000 girls.

Texas Governor Rick Perry defended abstinence education in Texas, saying “it works” while statistics rate it with the third-highest teen pregnancy rates in the country.

Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that teenagers who received some type of comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant, while a federal report showed that abstinence-only programs had “no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence,” reports Amanda Peterson Beadle for ThinkProgress.

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SF’s Only Locked Mental Health Facility For Youth Is Closing

SF’s Only Locked Mental Health Facility For Youth Is Closing (via The Bay Citizen)

Turned away from most other programs, teens are being moved By Trey Bundy on April 19, 2012 - 5:20 p.m. PDT Fourteen San Francisco teenagers who have been living in a locked mental health treatment program — children with traumatic backgrounds who require so much care that most other programs turned…

HIFY Adventures

My name is Maria Gasca and I am an intern at Hify. Every Tuesday and Thursday I come in and dedicate my time to Hify. I have been doing research on a new resource guide that Hify is developing for adolescents throughout the Bay Area.

Having these resources available is beneficial because youth will know where to go look and find a place that focuses on their primary struggle. The process I have to go through in order to create this new resource guide is learning how to read and use the previous guides Hify has published. At times it becomes a bit overwhelming because there is an immense amount of information to work with. I have been making phone calls to make sure the programs issued in the old Hify guides are currently offering the services stated as well as being located in the same location. Unfortunately, many great programs are no longer existant. Another of my tasks is to find if the resources we are deciding to publish have a website, for people can check out and obtain detailed information. I am very excited to publish the resource guide, and I hope everyone makes good use of it. 

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Queer and Undocumented: I Am Walking From San Francisco To Washington D.C. For The DREAM Act

Sometimes, I feel excluded even within the LGBTQ community. I remember the gay clubs in West Hollywood that would deny my friends and I entrance because of our Mexican matriculation. And I remember the faces they would give me, one of confusion and then of disgust that seemed to be thinking: “Mexican, Illegal, Fake.”

How are we fighting for acceptance in the LGBTQ community when many do not accept their queer brothers and sisters who are also oppressed as undocumented immigrants? It was a night like this when I decided to go to the one club in downtown Los Angeles where queer, undocumented, heterosexuals, drag queens and artists are welcome: Mustache Mondays. That night changed my life completely because I met Nicolas Gonzales.

It was a week after my birthday when we finally went out for lunch. He pulled a plastic bag from his backpack with 4 hard shell tacos and condiments, homemade Serrano spicy sauce, sour cream and Oaxacan cheese. He had already conquered my heart.

But what happens when two undocumented queers fall in love with each other?

What followed was not only a new kind of empowerment for myself, but a new commitment to my community.

I decided to come out of the shadows on January 24th, 2012 by taking part in an act of civil disobedience in protest of anti-immigrant laws in San Bernardino County. I was arrested and taken to a detention center. I was asked to confirm if I was a homosexual and was segregated from the other arrested protesters on the assumption that I had AIDS. Being in detention for only a few hours reinforced my decision to continue working for immigrant’s rights. I have never felt so moved to stand up for something that I had always been proud about: Being undocumented.

I joined the Campaign for an American DREAM as a guest walker to bring a message of hope and inclusively to LGBTQ members within the immigrant rights movement. Currently, my partner Nicolas and I are walking from San Francisco to Washington D.C. in order to raise awareness and urgency for passage of the federal DREAM Act.

My struggle and voice as an undocumented Latino gay man hopes to bring together not only my LGBTQ community of color but to show how crucial it is for both movements to accept the fact that LGBTQ issues are irrefutable immigrant rights issues. Alone, we’re vulnerable. Together, we are stronger. To ostracize one from another is something we can no longer afford to do.

I decided to leave everything behind to support the person I am in love with. Just like my mother and father had the courage to bring me to this country. Thanks to my partner, I saved myself from living in the shadows.

Art for Change is pleased to present Know Gays Aloud: The LGBT community has struggled to ensure equality of their civil liberties for over three decades. Though there has been significant progress in obtaining equal rights in the United States, such as the recent vote that passed a marriage equality law in New York, violence still persists against the LGBT community especially in minority populations. The increase in hostility towards the LGBT community in the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Africa has led to a rise in murders and teen suicides, notably for the transgendered. In Puerto Rico, even though murders of transgendered are becoming more frequent, the government is seeking to take these crimes off of the list of hate crimes, further justifying these acts of violence. This exhibition aims to expose the violence and prejudice that LGBT communities of color have endured through systematic cultural and religious persecution. Art for Change seeks work that reacts to this injustice.

Art for Change is pleased to present Know Gays Aloud featuring artists, D. Shayne Aldrich, Ryan William Turley, Christopher Udemezue, Micaela Anaya, , Darlene Ascbacher, Olivia Frazao, Paul Braker Prindle, Felipe Baeza, Rory Golden, Rochelle Williams, Nicole Goodwin, Ivan Velez and Cecilia Givens.

Spoken word performance by Nicole Goodwin.

Hollywood Star Colin Farrell Stands Up Against Homophobic Bullying

Not long to go until the closing date for entries in the GMR’s art contest for young people. The contest is open to those aged 18 to 24, and the deadline for entries is 1 April 2012. The first prize is a trip to Paris to participate in an event publicizing the artwork and meet with the GMR team. The winner’s work will be used in the report. Full details are available on our web site.

Youth Tobacco Use Still Too High, Report Says

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