Contrary to fantasies promoted by some social conservatives, improved sex ed programs appear to be making teenagers more likely to use birth control and far less likely to become pregnant. Tony Leys reported for the Sunday Des Moines Register,

Teen birth rates are plummeting in Iowa and across the country, and experts say it’s mainly because young people are being more careful about sex. Despite rosy memories about how wholesome kids were in the good old days, the fact is that American teens were three times more likely to become parents in the late 1950s and early 1960s than they are today. […]

Researchers and activists are trying to understand what’s behind the declining teen birth rates so they can keep the trend going.

“That’s the question of the day. Nobody can pinpoint exactly what’s causing this,” said Addie Rasmusson, a community health consultant with the Iowa Department of Public Health.

Rasmusson said part of the explanation is that educators have determined which types of lessons make the most difference. They have created carefully researched lesson plans for teachers to follow.

“Twenty years ago, maybe you could throw together whatever you thought sex ed should be,” she said.

Rasmusson added that lesson plans can be flexible. For example, she said, messages are tailored to reach teen boys and members of racial groups that have relatively high pregnancy rates. […]

A recent national report from the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health, said the teen birth rate decline is mainly because of increased and improved use of contraceptives. Teens are not becoming dramatically less sexually active, the report says. They’re also not having more abortions. But they are having fewer babies.

Leys’ report is worth reading in full, as he describes some innovative sex ed programs that teach teens “how to say no to unwanted sex, how to prevent pregnancies and how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.” Toward the end, the article points to a big problem for birth control access in rural Iowa. I was not aware that Casey’s General Stores has a company-wide policy against selling condoms. They are the only retail outlet in many towns. Independently-owned pharmacies have been disappearing from Iowa communities, and Planned Parenthood of the Heartland has reduced the number of clinics it operates in small towns as well.