WASHINGTON-"Let's talk about sex for now to the people at home or in the crowd, it keeps coming up anyhow."

That lyric is from a candidly worded rap song called, "Let's Talk About Sex" by the rap group Salt 'N' Pepa back in 1991. It is also, according to a new report based on research in the Netherlands, good advice for U.S. policymakers trying to formulate sex education policy.

Population Action International, a policy group associated with the United Nations, which works toward getting financial and political support for family planning and related programs, released a report Friday entitled, "In this Generation: Sexual and Reproductive Health Policies for a Youthful World" that said the United States' policies and practices on sex education lag severely behind those of Holland.

Recommendations from the group's report include having the federal government fund education programs across the nation that would teach both abstinence and contraception, and to put a tracking system into place that would monitor how effective programs are at reducing the rate of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage births.

In the Netherlands, students are taught in high school about how to handle the issues of AIDS and birth control. The practice seems to be working. In Holland, as a percentage of all births, the birth rate of women age 15 to 24 is 10 percent, while in the United States the rate is 37.4 percent.

The group is involved in the debate of teaching about contraception in conjunction with abstinence in sex education programs, which is also a contentious issue on Capitol Hill. Last week the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to continue federal funding over the next five years for so-called abstinence-only programs.

Conservative legislators think abstinence-only programs have not been emphasized enough as a sure means of preventing sexually transmitted diseases and birth control age, while liberal lawmakers feel that abstinence-only programs do not provide America's teenagers with enough information to preserve their health.

The group gets its funding from private donors, grants and foundations, which include the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Amy Coen, the group's president and CEO, emphasized her belief in the need for programs to instruct America's youth on both abstinence and the proper use of contraception.

"Using condoms isn't instinctual," Coen said. "If it were, the rate of HIV-infection and unwanted pregnancies would be a different story."

Take Action and add your voice to the growing debate over comprehensive sex ed.

Or to find out more, read one of the articles below.

 An Article on Sex Ed from SEX, ETC.
 The KFF Study on Sex Ed--A Survey of Teens, Parents, Teachers and Administrators
 An Article on the "Sex Ed Divide"

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