Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 23, 1993 TAG: 9303230189
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: YORK, PA. LENGTH: Medium
NO-SEX DAY DECLARED TO FIGHT TEEN PREGNANCY
A long walk in the park. Lingering over a candlelight dinner. Working out at the gym until midnight.Could activities like that keep teen-age minds off sex?
The Teen Pregnancy Coalition of York County hoped so Monday, declaring its first Great Sex-Out Day to impress on unmarried teen-agers the joys of abstinence.
It gave out brochures suggesting such alternatives to sex as baking cookies, taking moonlight walks and "holding one another close."
The aim was only partly to keep teen-agers - and older people, for that matter - in their own beds. The coalition also wanted to call attention to teen pregnancy and encourage discussion.
"We're just hoping that this piques people's interest enough so that they'll think about it," said Lois Backus, executive director of Planned Parenthood in York.
The coalition, a 6-year-old group composed of government and private social-service agencies, estimates that teen-agers accounted for 21.3 percent of all births in the city of York in 1991, one of the highest rates in the state.
Nationwide in 1990, 12.8 percent of babies were born to mothers under 20, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
The county, just south of Harrisburg, has about 300,000 residents. Many of the younger ones hadn't heard of the program Monday and doubted their peers would heed the message.
"You might tell them, but they won't listen," said 17-year-old Tyniquea Smith. She's a senior at York's William Penn Senior High School, which has a nursery for students' children.
An unmarried 16-year-old student who is 4 1/2 months pregnant and spoke on condition of anonymity said: "God put women on Earth to breed."
"It's all up to me - I could have prevented this," she said, looking down at her belly.
But Kimberly Zamudio, 20, who had two children when she was a teen-ager, said a similar program could have helped her.
Going without sex for a day was absolutely no problem, Zamudio said. "I don't recall anybody dying from not having sex."