Staking their lives on it

WASHINGTON—By 10:35 p.m. the sound equipment was in the truck and the stage itself was being broken down. The lawn of the National Mall, facing the Capitol, was pristine again. Only a few stragglers in "True Love Waits" T-shirts served to show that hours before 20,000 teens filled the lawn along with a display of more than 200,000 signed pledge cards. Exactly 150 of those youths and 10 adults even met with President Bill Clinton earlier that day-a meeting most found "disappointing," according to a youth leader.

A grassfire grassroots movement encouraging abstinence brought its message to Washington last week, but Washington wasn't listening carefully. The newest sexual revolution-a popular revolution, one that has seen more than half a million young people from 26 denominations and ministries flock to its front lines-came to the nation's capital, saw, but did not conquer.

Still, the event served as a visual reminder to the government that there have been two major developments in the war on teen pregnancy in recent years: not only Norplant, the darling birth-control drug of the administration, but also abstinence. The latter works, as statistics show, while the other is funded by the government. But hardened bureaucratic hearts failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the youths-if they found no federal affirmation, at least they found that they weren't alone.

"At home, some people in my school think it's cool," sad Laura, a 13-year-old from Tennessee. "Some people might come up and ask me about it, but here, I've met some really neat Christians. With these people it's socially acceptable to say no."

She met more than just Southern Baptists; coalition-building between the two largest religious groups in the nation led to Roman Catholic participation in the event. Catholic teens mingled with Protestant teens during the day, and at night they danced alongside each other to the music of Christian bands.

Although there were more girls than boys at the event, its theme was applied in the program to boys as well.

"It's not like you're not cool if you didn't have sex last night," one 15-year-old boy told a reporter.

True Love Waits and DC '94 (the July 29 rally) leaders seemed satisfied that the message was reaffirmed for the kids, even if President Clinton and his administration missed the point. Still, leaders wanted to youths to make some impact on the nation's capitol.

"We told the kids it would be a great witness to the city if after all of this we left everything perfectly clean," a youth minister from Virginia said as he surveyed the lawn from beneath a streetlamp on Jefferson Avenue. "You can't tell we were even there, can you?"

A good example of successful abstinence programs can be found just a few blocks from the National Mall, in schools such as Amidon Elementary and Jefferson Junior High. "Best Friends," a program developed by Elayne Bennett (wife of former education secretary William Bennett), bills itself as a tool to develop self-esteem and discipline in fifth-through-ninth-grade girls. Those warm-and-fuzzy words helped the private program gain access to public schools, where it focuses on something more: teaching girls that they're worth more than a casual sexual relationship.

The results are incontrovertible. More than 1,000 girls have participated in the program since 1987, but administrators say that to their knowledge, only one girl who participated for at least two years has become pregnant

Best Friends serves as a support group for virgins and girls who decide to cease sexual activity until marriage. Chapters are forming elsewhere, but abstinence-minded teens throughout the country are finding support from surprising sources: professional athletes (A.C. Green of the Phoenix Suns and his "Athletes for Abstinence") and some prime-time television shows (even Beverly Hills 90210 has a virgin in the clique.)

"Abstinence is busting out all over," declares a June report from the Family Research Council. While the cultural mainstream seems to assume that kids will be kids and kids will be sexually active, "[That] voice of the culture is being challenged by other voices."

"These young voices are so compelling that even the popular media has begun to sit up and take notice," writes Gracie S. Hsu, a policy analyst for the FRC. "From The New York Times to Glamour magazine, the report a new trend is emerging-a trend brought about not by policy wonks but by the teens themselves."

Ms. Hsu cites statistics from groups that generally oppose puritanical thoughts such as chastity, groups such as SIECUS-the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. Stats show that teen sexual activity is down (from 54 percent of high schoolers who said in 1991 they've had intercourse to 36 percent last year). And that poll, done by the Roper Starch group, showed that 54 percent of those who were sexually active said they wish they had waited.

On the opposite coast, San Marcos Junior High in San Marcos, Calif., adopted an abstinence-based and abstinence-only sex ed curriculum. The year before the curriculum was put into classrooms, 147 girls reported getting pregnant. Two years later, only 20 girls reported pregnancies.

Despite the evidence, the Ala Guttmacher Institute (the market research arm of Planned Parenthood), insists that contraceptives are the only realistic way to curb teen pregnancies. According to the Institute, "For most sexually active adolescents, the technical fix (contraceptives) does work reasonably well, at least for those families who are reasonably well off and who, overwhelmingly, should contraception fail, obtain abortions and continue with their educations and careers."

Of course, the odd teen may accept the scarlet C of chastity, Institute President Jeannie Rosoff wrote to the Wall Street Journal, but "given current social conditions,…few will delay [sex] until marriage or indefinitely."

One Nashville teen in Washington for the True Love Waits celebration took offense at that statement. "We're not animals," said Le Ann, a 13-year-old member of Tulip Grove Baptist Church, where youth minister Richard Ross first developed the True Love Waits concept, the pledge cards, and the ring ceremonies between youths and their parents. "They [Planned Parenthood and like-minded organizations] assume we can't control ourselves. But we can."

Added Emily, 14, "Safe sex, safe sex-that's all you hear. MTV shows all about 'Sex in the 90's.' There's more than that. There's staying pure." The girls proudly pointed out that Mr. Ross, their youth minister, was part of a group of 150 youths and 10 adults who would meet with President Clinton in a few hours.

"Maybe this will touch his [Clinton's] heart," Mrs. Anderson said.

Another major development in the ongoing sexual revolution has already touched the collective heart of a kindly federal government. It doesn't have the stats and the testimonials abstinence has, but Norplant is sufficiently propped up with subjective and questionable evidence, a massive public relations machine, and zealous devotion by women's groups that blind themselves to medical malpractice.

Norplant's 1990 approval by the FDA was termed "long overdue" by USA Today columnists Julianne Malveaux. She claimed that those six matchstick-size tubes, implanted in the arms of forgetful women (or those otherwise not satisfied with conventional birth control methods), were worth the wait of pesky manufacturer-and FDA-administered tests and trials.

"We need to celebrate the arrival of Norplant," she wrote, citing its "simple method of insertion," a "99 percent effectiveness rate" and the fact that it offers women "a new range of options" for birth control.

Newsweek termed Norplant "real progress" in making birth control easier and more foolproof. The device was "tremendously effective" and "reclaiming one's fertility is as simple as having the device removed," according to the magazine. Women with the most to gain were "the young and the poor."

By 1994, however, USA Today was backing away from its support of the drug. Norplant, according to columnist Barbara Reynolds, was a bust, not a breakthrough. The rods proved more problematic than previously thought; removal was often more difficult and sometimes it was even deadly. More than half the women who had the contraceptive implanted wanted it take out early, and one doctor compared the tricky job of removing the tubes to "bobbing for apples."

The sociological drawbacks were many, as well: Instead of becoming another middle-class alternative to the Pill, it was forced on poor women (mostly black) in true Margaret Sanger fashion. Between 1990 and 1994, more than 1 million U.S. women were implanted-and the rods are still going in. Many have been implanted at the orders of a court.

When a California judge sentenced a mother convicted of child abuse to either jail or to have the rods inserted, Norplant became a racial issue. She chose the rods, but within weeks changed her mind.

Soon after, the Kansas state assembly considered a bill that would force the rods into every female felon able to bear children. The alternative was jail time. A companion bill in the assembly would reward welfare mothers who took advantage of a free implantation with a $500 bonus and $50 a year for as long as she kept the rods in. In Texas, the legislature also considered a cash reward for poor women who agreed to be implanted.

Things are different now. Those legislative efforts failed, but the administration hasn't caught on yet. As late as March 19, Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders demanded that distributor Wyeth-Ayerst cut the price of the contraceptive. Norplant kits sell for $23 outside the United States, she pointed out, but cost $365 here. Although Medicaid already pays for implants for the lowest-income women, Mrs. Elders said women of moderately poor incomes, "the working poor, the uninsured, and the underinsured" deserve Norplant, too.

On July 29, Elders and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala refused invitations to speak with the True Love Waits youths. But at the 9:30 a.m. press conference, rally leaders announced that President Clinton agree to a meeting later in the afternoon.

At 4:30 p.m., youth consultant Richard Ross, now a youth consultant to the SBC, returned to the media tent on the National Mall after the meeting with the president. As he grabbed a chair near a cluster of reporters, SBC Christian Life Commission communications director Tom Strode asked how it went. "Weak," Ross smiled, shaking his head.

The first questions were factual: Who went? 150 teens, all from DC '94 (five of those were from Tulip Grove Baptist). Where was it? In the Old Executive Office Building. How long did it last? Just a few minutes. Did the president take any questions or comments? No.

Ross spoke slowly and carefully: "The president made a nice address to the young people…He shared several of his positive accomplishments this week, including the crime bill, the Israel-Jordan talks, and reports today of a strong economy."

Wait-was abstinence mentioned?, a reporter asked.

Ross took a deep breath. "The president took note that several True Love Waits teens wore white ribbons. He used that to introduce the concept that the government has limited ability to affect teen sexual behavior. The only hope is for teens to make personal choices to delay sex, based on a personal sense of morality. The president sounded very sincere in his remarks."

Colleague Strode winced.

Did President Clinton say that abstinence was a right choice, or even a good choice? Did he mention the word "Baptist"? Did he admit to being one? If the government can have but little effect on teen sexual activity, why was it pushing Norplant and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on other sex programs? Ross gave no answer.

Jim Smith, who heads the Christian Life Commission's Washington office, wasn't surprised at the president's remarks and his statements-by-omission.

"It's clear that the administration is not comfortable with abstinence as an appropriate response to teen sexual activity," Smith said. "What these kids are doing and pledging violates one of the cardinal tenets of the liberal faith: It's OK for unmarried kids-for unmarried adults, as well-to be sexually active. They just need to be educated about how to do it."

"That's the safe sex myth," Smith said. "And people die from it."

There's irony as well in the fact that Clinton marched away from the podium and left the room without pausing to have photos taken with some of the teens.

"He talks so much about how that one handshake he shared with John F. Kennedy changed his life," Smith said. "You see pictures of that all over the place. But here, he doesn't reach out to a single youth. In pragmatic terms, I'd say no politician would turn down the chance to have a photo taken with people-apparently, these kids were just the wrong people."

Funding for the abstinence-grounded federal Title 20 Adolescent Family Life Program was cut off the month before the July 29 rally. In June, the Clinton administration gutted Title 20 funding-proving Smith's point about the administration's priorities. Even before it was cut, the funding was little more than symbolism-$7 million, compared to untold millions sent to schools and communities to teach about condoms and pay for Norplant. Officials deny that Title 20 is dead; they contend that the money will be sent to a revamped version of the AFL program, a new department called the Office of Adolescent Health.

Even though Ms. Shalala sought to mollify Republicans with assurances in a widely circulated letter to a GOP congressman that abstinence would be promoted by the new office, her words amounted to an invitation to a wake for the now-dead idea of abstinence-only in government-funded programs. "For adolescents who accept the abstinence message, this is fine…but abstinence education efforts will have to be part of a more comprehensive project that includes a broader range of health, education, and social services for adolescents," she wrote.

That leaves out such groups as Teen Aid Inc., a Spokane, Wash. Group that publishes an abstinence curriculum. The group received federal funds totaling $180,000 in 1993; this year, nothing. Teen Choice, based in Virginia, also lost Title 20 funding, and Project Reality of Illinois is struggling to stay afloat without the federal funds.

"I'll apply to the OAH, and I'll show that we give more information than just abstinence," said Kathleen Sullivan, director of Project Reality. "We'll show that condoms don't work and that Norplant exacerbates the problem of teen pregnancy by accelerating the involvement in sexual activity and does nothing about the emotional trauma involved. Condoms don't protect hearts-sex damages emotional development."

She recognizes that all the facts she has on her side won't help-this is a battle between ideology and evidence, and the administration is sticking to ideology.

The True Love Waits campaign, coming so soon after the Title 20 abolishment, was a lift to her spirits, Mrs. Sullivan told World, and it illustrates that abstinence educators have made some progress. Mrs. Sullivan recalled "when we couldn't even use the word 'marriage.' Now we can even use the word 'virtue.' I see it as proof that the kids are responding and listening and speaking up on their own on the subject-and they're not as bad as the government thinks they are."

She laughs as she tells of the plane trip home from the Washington rally. A woman happened on to a group of 20 or so youths at the airport, a few seats over from Mrs. Sullivan. The woman asked the kids if they were "at that thing for virgins." They responded yes, and the woman began telling them, in a voice that grew louder and louder, how brave they were and how she wished that someone had told her it was OK to abstain when she was a teen.

"That was the best shot in the arm I've had in months, just seeing that," Mrs. Sullivan said. "The administration may be against abstinence, but we know the kids aren't. We have done studies; only 3 percent of the kids we asked said that sexual urges were uncontrollable. The question has always been why should they? Now we're giving them a reason, and we're having to go over the heads of the popular culture and even our own government to get the message to them-the message we've seen that they all want to hear."

Mrs. Sullivan's studies show that not only do kids want to hear the message, they're ready to respond to it. More that half said a teen who had already had sex would "benefit by deciding to stop…and wait till marriage." Almost all (93 percent) agree that it would be important to talk to their parents if they were pregnant or had gotten someone pregnant-dispelling the portrait of parents as unsympathetic, inexperienced and harsh authoritarians.

And 82 percent of the 1,500 teens surveyed said the best way for them to stay free from sexually transmitted diseases is to stay chaste until marriage.

During the True Love Waits rally, Youth for Christ leaders described the thousands of teens as "the crest of a wave." A writer from USA Today described them as the choir being preached to. Actually, it was preached to, sung to, revived-and ultimately ignored by the powers that be. The choir didn't seem surprised. At 10:35 p.m., when the cards were picked up from the mall and most of the kids were gone, a parent from a Virginia youth group talked of how the movement will continue-Youth for Christ plans a "Worth the Wait" campaign to last for two years.

"It's a good thing, and I'm glad it will be around when my younger son reaches junior high," she said. "This is something they need to hear, and they're not hearing it anywhere else."