Is it really possible to break the issue of teen sexuality and teen pregnancy down into black and white? Or, since this is election season, let’s put it this way: is it really possible to break the issue of teen sexuality and teen pregnancy into red and blue?

Margaret Talbot wrote an essay for The New Yorker discussing teen pregnancy and the ways in which it is viewed across the political spectrum, an excerpt of which was used in a blog post in a Washington City Paper blog:

Social liberals in the country’s “blue states” tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in “red states” generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have an abortion.

The blogger goes on to share a few opinions about the fact that all parents get upset when their children prove them wrong and also accuses the “Blue-staters” of being without God.

As you might expect, I probably fall a little bit more into the category of Blue-stater than a Red-stater, but I don’t believe that it is possible to really break an issue like teen sexuality, pregnancy and motherhood into either black or white; I think that we all live in a state of grey (or purple, if you choose to stick with red and blue).

The reality is that many - not all - teens explore their sexual curiosity. While I believe that parents should have the opportunity to talk with their kids about sex and contraception, many parents don’t. Living near Washington DC where it is estimated that 1 in 20 youth under the age of 20 are infected with HIV, I’ve got to say that *something* needs to be done, and while I do not have all of the answers, it seems to me that contraception is no longer just a matter of sex ed, it’s a matter of health education.

Whether a parent (or school program) pushes that abstinence is the only way to prevent an unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases or not, birth control in general and condoms in particular need to be discussed more. Is birth control full-proof? Of course not, but it’s more effective than doing nothing just as any education on the matter in schools is more valuable than none. Teaching sex ed and safer sex practices in schools, ultimately, does nothing more to tell kids that going out and having sex is okay than showing films that depict the hazards of reckless or drunken driving tells them to go crack open mom and dad’s liquor cabinet and then hop into the driver’s seat.

Open discussion, love and support: these are the things that should be provided in the home - whether the family is liberal leaning or conservative leaning. They are also the same things that should be provided to teens who find themselves needing to make a choice about how to respond to their unexpected pregnancy.

Whether a teen makes the choice to have an abortion - which, if she does I would want it to be her choice and not something that she was forced into - or to put her baby up for adoption or to raise the child herself, ultimately I believe that the concept of teen pregnancy is the same: teens need support and they need to know that they will have that support regardless of the choices that they make (which, for the record, I think extends to many other areas as well).