GOP ticket split over condom use

Even before Palin released a statement about her daughter Bristol, teen pregnancy had been in the spotlight frequently this year. The teen birth rate, which had been declining for 15 years, showed an increase in new data released in July. One month earlier, 17-year-old actress Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth to a daughter, distressing parents who worried about the message it would send to young fans. And early in the year, the film "Juno" won an Oscar, prompting critics to accuse Hollywood of glamorizing teen pregnancy.

Sex education varies widely across the nation's school districts.

In California, the state Education Code does not allow abstinence-only programs in public schools, so if a school offers sex education, it must include discussion of contraception as well as abstinence. About 96% of the state's schools offer sex education. All schools are required to educate older children about HIV/AIDS, and those discussions must cite both abstinence and condoms as methods of preventing infection.

The federal government has spent more than $1 billion on the abstinence-only message since 1996 under a program created by Congress as part of welfare reform. California is the only state to have declined to take part in the program since its inception. In recent years, states that had taken part in the program have decided to forgo the funding and the restrictions that come with it.

Palin's statements date to her 2006 gubernatorial run. In July of that year, she completed a candidate questionnaire that asked, would she support funding for abstinence-until-marriage programs instead of "explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?"

Palin wrote, "Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support."

But in August of that year, Palin was asked during a KTOO radio debate if "explicit" programs include those that discuss condoms. Palin said no and called discussions of condoms "relatively benign."

"Explicit means explicit," she said. "No, I'm pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues. So I am not anti-contraception. But, yeah, abstinence is another alternative that should be discussed with kids. I don't have a problem with that. That doesn't scare me, so it's something I would support also."

--

seema.mehta@latimes.com