To honor National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Day
(May 6^th), Rewire hosted an audio press conference with
four experts and advocates on teen pregnancy prevention and comprehensive sex
education programs. 

 

Listen
to the audio media conference here: 

After more than a decade of decline, both teen
pregnancy rates and the overall number of teen births in the United States have
started rising again throughout the country, erasing hard-won gains.  As the National Campaign for the Prevention
of Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy notes, the rise in teen pregnancy rates is the
result of, among other things:

 

• More sex and less contraception;
• Declining concerns among teens about HIV
  and AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections;
• Changing demographics in the populations
  at risk;
• Lack of funding for effective programs.

 

To examine these and other issues, the following
experts joined Rewire for their audio conference call:

 

• Bill Albert, Chief Program Officer of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy,
  a private, non-profit initiative organized in 1996 that focuses on preventing
  both teen pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy among single, young adults.
• Lori Casillas, Executive Director of the
  Colorado Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting, and Prevention
  (COAPPP), a statewide organization that works with communities and individuals
  in Colorado to promote the healthy sexual and reproductive development of all
  teens and advance the well-being of parenting teens.
• Forrest Alton, Executive Director of the
  South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, which reaches over 1,000
  people in each of South Carolina’s 46 counties on an annual basis with
  education, technical assistance, public awareness campaigns, advocacy, and
  research.
• Shelby Knox who grew up as a conservative
  Southern Baptist in Texas and turned toward activism in response to what she
  saw as the danger of abstinence-only-until marriage programs. Shelby, who recently graduated from the
  University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Political Science, has traveled
  across the nation to speak to young people about the importance of
  comprehensive sex education and the power of youth activism, using the film
  that carries her name, The Education of
  Shelby Knox, as a vehicle for discussion. She currently lives in New York City
  and is a full time speaker and organizer working with progressive organizations
  to promote sex education, women’s rights, and youth empowerment.

 

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