CHICAGO, IL, March 21, 2014, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Starting next school year, 24 Chicago high schools will begin distributing free condoms as part of a pilot program for sex education, with Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s stamp of approval.
“Yes I defend it,” Emanuel said at a news conference. “That doesn't absolve a parent from talking about it with their child about responsibility, behavior and respect.”
This expansion is part of a larger 5-year program, called the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative (TPPI), which is aimed at lowering the rate of teen pregnancy in Chicago. The city has one of the highest rates in the country, one and a half times the national average. The initiative received $20 million of federal funds in 2010 to finance its various programs and campaigns.
One such program was a poster campaign featuring topless pregnant teen boys with the slogan “Unexpected?” inscribed beside it. Other posters depict various Chicago landmarks, such as the Sears Tower and an L Train, wrapped in condoms.
According to the TPPI, condoms will be available at these 24 high-schools from tabletop and wall-mounted dispensers and electronic, locker-sized dispensers with LED screens “providing sexual health messages.” These schools will join the 476 locations around the city that distributed more than 9 million condoms last year, sponsored by the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Stephanie Whyte, chief health officer for Chicago Public Schools, pointed out a recent survey while testifying before City Council’s Health and Education Committees.
“What stands out,” Whyte said, “is 52 percent of our high school students have had sexual intercourse. Just under 18 percent of them have had four or more partners in their lifetime and only about 64 percent have used a condom in the last month.”
Emanuel said the expansion merely recognizes the current reality facing high-schoolers.
“It’s an acknowledgement of what’s happening,” he said, “whether you did that or not. It’s … an attempt to deal, from a health care perspective, [with] both pregnancy as well as socially-transmitted diseases.”
The Illinois Family Institute called the program “yet another misguided attempt to curb unintended pregnancies.”
“Nothing says ‘avoid pregnancies and STD’s’ quite like a peck of free condoms,” continues the IFI. “What freebies are next in Chicago public high schools? E-cigarettes and clean needles?”