Be Serious

California is using tax funds to help the Right to Life League of Southern California make a videotape that tries to persuade teen-agers that abstinence is the best way to stop adolescent pregnancies. One answer, to be sure, but hardly the only one. Advice that helps young people deal with their sexuality rather than ignore it is far more realistic and, as a recent Johns Hopkins University study demonstrated, far more effective.

The study, reported in the Family Planning Perspectives magazine published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, found that inner-city teenagers who took part in a sex-education program had dramatically fewer pregnancies than those who did not participate. Girls in the program not only became sexually active later in their teen-age years but were far less likely to become pregnant. The study shot holes in arguments that sex education encourages promiscuity among teen-agers.

Laurie Zabin, who directed the study, said, “The evidence is that no one needed any help legitimizing sex. They’re already having it. What it legitimizes is consulting professionals and not having babies.”

Unfortunately, that does not seem a legitimate goal to the Office of Family Planning in the Deukmejian Administration, which is spending $35,000 on a videotape urging abstinence. The move seems to support the contention of responsible birth-control advocates that people who oppose them are not just interested in stopping abortions but are against family planning in general, and possibly against sex as well. The main question about the approach is whether the office wants to cut down on adolescent pregnancies or produce another film that teen-agers will regard as cult humor--another sign that adults are less serious about the problem than teen-agers.