Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 8, 1995 TAG: 9502090026
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Foster was less than forthcoming about his views and how many abortions he has performed. Even the pro-choice Kansas Republican Sen. Nancy Kassebaum said she was disturbed by the misleading information given to her by the White House concerning Foster.
But there is more to this than misinformation and disinformation. Foster has close ties to Planned Parenthood, which has a view of sex and education that has exacerbated, not solved, one of the major problems our country faces. Planned Parenthood is not interested in changing sexual behavior but rather in avoiding the unwanted physical consequences of premature sex. Yet one has to wonder why it has failed so miserably in achieving that objective.
California may be the best state to judge the results of the philosophy held by Planned Parenthood and its devotees, who include the nominee for surgeon general.
Mike Males, a graduate student in the doctoral program of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine, has studied tabulations from the California Center for Health Statistics covering 46,500 births among school-age (ages 18 and younger) adolescents in the state in 1993. In 85 percent of these births, the fathers' ages are identified. The statistics show two very different types of ``teen-age'' motherhood.
The first involves peer schoolboy partners, ages 18 and younger, who average about one year older than their girlfriends. These are the targets of the Elders-Foster-Planned Parenthood condom squads and the focus of the chastity vs. condoms war. Boys in this category accounted for about 13,400 births among schoolgirls in California in 1993, only 29 percent of the total.
In 33,200 births among California girls ages 11-18 (71 percent of the total), the father was a post-high-school adult man averaging over 22 years of age - five years older than the mother, on average. These adult fathers, who are responsible for nearly three-fourths of the 40,700 births among senior-high girls, average nearly 23 years old.
The adult men who father half the 5,900 births among junior high girls (ages 11-15) average 22.1 years of age, 61/2 years older than their mothers. In 6,000 births among California schoolgirls in 1993, the fathers were over age 25. Also surprising was that one-fifth of the births fathered by schoolboys (about 3,000) were by adult, post-school women.
As Males notes, this isn't about ``children having children'' or ``teen motherhood.'' It is adult sex with school-age youths.
For more than 30 years, Planned Parenthood and its disciples such as Elders and Foster have targeted elementary schoolchildren with their brand of sex education. Elders wanted to teach elementary kids how to masturbate and use condoms. But in California in 1993, elementary schoolboys fathered no children. Senior-high boys, though, were responsible for 41 percent of the births and adult men fathered more than 50 percent of babies born to girls between ages 11 and 15.
Numerous studies, including some by Planned Parenthood's research arm, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, show that most ``sexually active'' girls under 15 are victims of rape by substantially older men. Males writes it is a fact that ``adolescents reflect adult values and behavior.'' We are deceiving ourselves when we think we can make adolescents behave differently from the irresponsible adults who surround them and who pump sex into everything from movies and television to music and advertising.
We would be far better off working to reduce the 71 percent figure (post-high-school adult men fathering children with teen-age girls) than focusing on the 29 percent figure (peer schoolboy partners).
Foster isn't really ``Elders Lite''; he is Elders reincarnated. Her ideas have been proved not to work. His are just more of the same. We deserve a surgeon general who will focus on the real health needs of the country, not condone those whose behavior is detrimental to our society's well-being. When is this administration going to get it?
- Los Angeles Times Syndicate
by CNB