Public sector in private matters

>>> for years contraception has been handed out but it's been made available to those as young as 14 and they can get it without their parents knowing. the program is called c.a.t.c.h. it's reignited the role in private sectors especially with teenagers so young but the city says it's got to do something to stem the rising tied of teen pregnancy which often leaves poor girls to drop out of school. nearly 7,000 girls annually drop out before the age of 17. 90% were unintended. more thereafter half lead to abortion. what happened here is kind of ahead of the kuvg at least nationally in terms of where we are in public schools and these matters, but it occurs to me thinking about this that maybe this is something we're going to be seeing outside of new york city i would guess fairly soon because i'm thinking back really less than 20 years ago when i was growing up and there was a bee dee bait going on. there was a debate about the ail veilability of condoms in the public high school . it was extremely controversial. i remember religious leaders in towns to rally zents against it and i believe the town school committee voted it down. i see the most recent polling data on it now is from 2009 . nearly 70% of people nationally say, yes, condoms should be available in public schools . so i just see, you know, in less than two a decades where public opinion has moved on that. and i look at something like this and i say, yeah, it's going to get a lot of heat right now, but i bet you, you know, a decade from now this is the next phase of that.

>> yeah. one thing i would point out here is the change here is making it available in the schools. new york state already has access to contraception without parental parental permission. this is making it more accessful. if you want to combat poverty, teen age pregnancy, this is the most effective way to do it. and i'll tell you two things. over the '90s there was a decline in teenage pregnancy in the united states and a good institute did it. a quarter of the decline was caused by an increase in abstinence, teenagers were having less sex but three quarters of the decline was caused by a decrease in the use of contraceptions and using more effective contraceptive, so instead of condoms they were using the longer term birth control and that made a big difference. the other thing here is internationally even though we stheerch decline, the united states is still doing worse than most other countries in the developed world in terms of teenage pregnancies . as you can see on the chart, that is also because, number one, we're using less effective forms of birth control . that's like the primary reason. so providing access to birth control , providing the morning after pill, making it readily accessful, those are the best way to combat teen pregnancy and reduce poverty.

>> do we make it available to teens who inevitably have sex and all mountainly do it without ruining their life and beinging families long before they're ready and forming families they're not ready to live or do we rivering ruining their lives? for me the answer is really clear. i want them to have the ability to experiment and protect themselves as they're experimenting rather than just say we're going to not allow you to have contraception and we hope that you don't have sex.

>> i guess i'm just a prud. i really just wish we could spend more time talking about,000 reduce unwanted pregnancies before the fact and not after the fact, not the what to do both.

>> i think you can do both.

>> we all twhanlt.

>> we've put so much responsibility on teachers to address these issues of sex education and drugs and alcohol and tolerance and self-esteem that it gives the parent as chance to opt out and say it will be covered in school. i think parents should be having those discussions at home.