Indiana: Time to "Get Real"

The study, Contraception Counts: Ranking State Efforts, ranked Indiana 49th in service availability, 42nd in laws and policies, and 35th in public funding, for a 49th overall ranking.

"Half of all pregnancies [in Indiana] are unintended, and half of those end in abortion," said Betty Cockrum, Planned Parenthood of Indiana (PPI) president and CEO. "Hoosiers need better sex education and better access to birth control, the two main factors that can bring our state out of our near last place ranking in this survey."

In fiscal year 2004 Indiana spent more than $2.6 million in federal dollars on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Federal guidelines mandate that these funds be used for abstinence-only programs and nothing more, inhibiting teachers from discussing other forms of contraception and disease prevention.

Now, PPI and a coalition of 25 [community-based] organizations are calling for medically accurate, comprehensive sex education for all Indiana students. They've launched Get Real, Indiana!, responding to Indiana's dire need for better efforts to avoid unintended pregnancy by promoting medically accurate, comprehensive sex education, which includes information on both abstinence and birth control methods.

Get Real, Indiana!'s mission statement lays out the case: "Truly honest sex education seeks to help all young people garner information and skills about taking care of their sexual health, and making responsible decisions now and in the future. Comprehensive sex education is absolutely necessary for our youth to be able to avoid ignorance, unintended pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases."

"Young people and teenagers are not getting critical information they need to make healthy decisions," said Kathleen Baldwin, PPI vice president of education and training.

To help get to the bottom of the problem, PPI conducted a parent survey of almost 500 people from all over Indiana about their thoughts, opinions, and behaviors regarding sexuality communication in their homes.

Unfortunately, the findings of the PPI parent study found that the same subjects being left out at schools are not usually being discussed at home, either.

Get Real, Indiana! also sought to gain a better understanding of school personnel's awareness and understanding of school policies and state law regarding sex education and to assess sexuality throughout the school setting.

Get Real, Indiana! commissioned Indiana University to conduct an online survey to explore these issues. "We wanted to find out not just about the formal classroom education but the informal interactions that happen in the hallways and in the counselors' and nurses' offices with folks who aren't the formal teachers of sexuality education," said Baldwin.

Potential participants were identified from the Indiana Department of Education's website. Postcards were then sent to health educators, physical education teachers, nurses, and counselors with a link to the study's website.

Indiana University than analyzed the data it collected from about 400 participants. The study's findings along with those of the PPI parent study made it abundantly clear why the Guttmacher study ranked Indiana 49th in helping women avoid unintended pregnancy.

A large percentage (42 percent) of respondents in the school personnel survey reported teaching an abstinence-only philosophy. However, the majority of the respondents believed it to be a less effective strategy. Nearly 90 percent of respondents believed comprehensive sexuality education to be a more effective teaching philosophy.

"We are using the surveys' findings to call together anybody in Indiana who cares about this [the state of Indiana's sexual education]," said Baldwin. "So far we have about 25 organizations who've signed on as members of Get Real, Indiana! and about 3,600 names on petitions. We need people in communities checking in with their schools and really giving a very clear message that we support a comprehensive and medically accurate approach to sexuality."