When two tragic New Jersey teen pregnancy cases received immediate national media attention, the sensational coverage inevitably generated a distorted image of a state with out-of-control, sexually reckless teenagers.
Arguably, the two cases, which attracted ink from The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, were irresistible from a national media standpoint. The first New Jersey case involving 19-year-old Melissa Drexler who, while at her senior prom, gave birth in the bathroom, discarded the newborn in the trash and returned to the dance floor to request a song for her and her boyfriend, was quickly followed by another New Jersey teen who gave birth in her family's garage and also abandoned her newborn in a trash bin. The chances were slim to none that the media would pass on such dramatic examples of teen pregnancy, especially when the issue of teen sexuality is receiving heightened nationwide attention from policy makers on Capitol Hill and a number of public health agencies and religious groups.
When these stories broke, the media craved reactionary-focused comments from national resources like Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (both based in Washington, D.C.) to make sense of the inherent complexities of these particular teen pregnancy cases. "Reporters wanted to know how something like this could happen to middle-class teens and why they resorted to such extreme measures," said John Hutchins, communications manager for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy(NCPTP), launched in 1996 to help reduce the nation's teen pregnancy rate by a third by 2005.
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NCPTP, which received about three media calls, seized the media spotlight to set the record straight on the current state of teen pregnancy. To provide a more realistic picture of teen pregnancy, Hutchins first relied on optimistic trending stats generated by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York which reported that the nation's teen pregnancy rate dipped to 111.9 per 1000 girls aged 15-19 in 1992 (the most recent year the data is available), from 115.8 per 1000 in 1991, and 117.1 per 1000 in 1990.
Hutchins also clarified that despite the publicity surrounding the two recent New Jersey cases, the state, ranking 29th in the nation, doesn't come close to leading the country in teen pregnancy. California is No. 1 followed by Nevada and Hawaii.
These media inquiries also provide opportunities to plug the more critical sex education issues. For NCPTP, this meant highlighting its "No Easy Answers" Program which stresses the need for more research on the effectiveness of the various sex education approaches, primarily abstinence-only and abstinence-based comprehensive programs.
"Even though there is considerable disagreement on [sex education] strategy, it's important to emphasize that there is no easy middle ground, and funding for research is crucial," said Hutchins, "These horrible stories are rare, but it is an opportunity for us to highlight that teen pregnancy is serious."
Since these cases were in Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan New Jersey, Inc.'s (PPMNJ) back yard, local and national media contacted the group for local perspective on how teens could be driven to such heinous acts, "especially involving middle-class teens who should know better about contraceptive and birthing options," said Magdalen Constan, PPMNJ's public affairs director. Stressing how the two cases painfully illustrate the need for more abstinence-based comprehensive sex education programs, Constan tried to convey to the media the desperate state of mind some teenage girls are in. "Obviously, these girls feel that they can't take advantage of the options available to them, and that means more programs are needed to educate them on their [contraceptive and reproductive] options."
Oddly enough, were no media questions about New Jersey's sex educational programs, which Planned Parenthood considers to be a key factor in shaping successful teen pregnancy prevention outcomes and could have possibly influenced the decisions of the girls in the two isolated cases, so Constan turned their attention to it.
Although New Jersey is one of 12 states that mandates sex education be offered in kindergarten through 12th grade, the content is highly community-based and divergent.
Delores Tucker, PPMNJ's executive director, highlighted this discrepancy in a reactionary letter to The New York Times regarding the prom case. "There is no standard curriculum and each school district is responsible for designing its own plan.We do not know what information Melissa Drexler [the teen who gave birth at her prom] was given about contraception and sexual activity. Nor do we know how Melissa Drexler felt about abortion and contraception. If she was not afraid of being stigmatized or in denial, she may not have considered those options."
These cases also provided excellent opportunities to blow the whistle on federal initiatives to cut funding for family planning and teen pregnancy prevention research. (Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 202/785-3351; Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan New Jersey, 201/622-3900; National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 202/857-8591)