A better choice.

MR. BESHAROV asks us, "Which is worse: the possibility of a marginal increase in sexual activity? Or losing the opportunity to reduce abortions and out-of-wedlock births by 10, 20, or even 30 per cent? To ask the question is to answer it." I have asked the question, and it is by no means answered. The alternative he poses are misleading.

Given the figure of a million teenage pregnancies, a 10 per cent reduction by the use of Norplant would require 100,000 implantations. In either case, it's an ambitious program. Presumably the program is voluntary and hundreds of thousands of teenage girls (the proposal does put all the responsibility on the girls) would want to have a minor surgical procedure that would contraceptively equip them for sexual intercourse. Presumably also, the parents would have some say in this and would agree to having their daughters thus equipped. Presumably yet further, one result would be "the possibility of a marginal increase in sexual activity."

I suggest that the result would be the near certainty of a substantial increase in sexual intercourse among teenagers. If so, that would mean also an increase in abortions and single-parent children. The problems that the proposal intends to resolve would be greatly exacerbated.

Of course we do not know for sure until it is tried. There are many perilous things that should not be tried. We should not under public auspices try implanting Norplant in teenage girls. To do so would be to try something that possibly no society has tried before: to state publicly that there are no social standards or sanctions with respect to the sexual activity of young people. It might be objected that we are already making that statement by distributing condoms in public schools. Just so. Which is why condom distribution is a dumb idea, and far from settled policy in most schools.

Mr Besharov says that abstinence is the best goal "for younger teens especially." (At 15 you can't do it but at 16 you can?) He adds, "But the harsh fact is that we have neither the social will nor the practical tools to achieve [the goal of abstinence]." I do not know what he means by "pratical tools," but presumably we do not have means of discouraging and encouraging certain behaviours among young people. Parents have never succeeded in controlling totally the behavior of their children, which is just as well. But if Mr. Besharov is suggesting that parents--and churches and schools--should give up on discouraging sexual promiscuity and encouraging abstinence, his is even more of a counsel of despair than I had at first thought.

The critical reference is to "social will." To whom, one may ask, belong the wills that make up this social will? Teenagers, parents, brothers, sisters, pastors, teachers, school boards, aunts, and uncles--each, one by one, can have a will with respect to teenage sexuality. Or perhaps the suggestion is that most people who are in a position to influence teenagers really do not care about what they do sexually. The survey research data do not support that suggestion. But even if most people did not care, that does not mean that we should adopt public policies premised upon not caring. Mr. Besharov cares. He obviously cares about abortion and out-of-wedlock children, and by implication he cares about teenage fornication (he calls it an evil). I have never met the "social will," but I have met many people who care very much about their childrens' sexual behavior.

Just Not Right

BUT MR. Besharov, along with many others, is discouraged about the possibility of encouraging abstinence from sexual intercourse. The discouragement is understandable. As I wrote in the first article, many in the media, entertainment, and educational establishments proclaim that abstinence is unnatural, chastity is unattainable, and virginity is a form of sexual deviance. And yet, in such a social climate, at least one half of teenage girls are virgins. It seems quite remarkable. Many in the other half have had sex only once or twice, while many more, those who have been very "sexually active," know that what they have done is not right.

Let us stipulate for argument's sake that 25 per cent of teenage girls are sexually promiscuous and think there is nothing wrong with that. Why should we agree with them by adopting policies that declare that tyhe sexual behavior of young people is a matter of public indifference? Why should we not, rather, encourage the 75 per cent who want to do the right thing, even if they do not always behave as they know they ought? When it comes to doing the right thing, incentives and disincentives are always in fragile balance. Those who want to do the right thing need all the support that they can get. Girls in particular need support in resisting predatory males.

Consider 16-year-old Thelma who has her Norplant in place. Her reasons for saying no are sharply reduced. She is equipped for sex. Her school and, presumably, her parents have said that they expect her to have sexual intercourse. Saying no seems artbitary, irrational, and downright unfriendly. If through public policy we declare that we expect teenagers to be sexually promiscuous, that it is the normal thing, it is reasonable to suppose that more teenagers will be sexually promiscuous. If, on the other hand, we make it clear that we expect abstinence, chastity, and self-command, virture might be given a helping hand.

Or we can give up. We can, perhaps implicitly but with a powerful social effect, agree with the minority (maybe the small minority) of teenagers who are sexually promiscuous and think there is nothing wrong with that. But, it might be objected, Norplant would be used selectively. It would not be a general statement of approval with respect to teenage promiscuity since it would be given only to those girls who already are "sexually active."

Anyone who takes that objection seriously has been on a long vacation from American reality. Norplant would be administered, as it is said, on a non-discriminatory basis, meaning there is no room for discriminations between good and bad, right and wrong. There must be, as policy guidelines would make clear, no "judgmental" connotation attached to getting a Norplant--the rules of self esteem require that. In sum, great effort would be expended in making sure it is understood that Norplant and the sexual promiscuity it is intended to facilitate are perfectly acceptable.

To be sure, many Americans think it is more acceptable for "their" teenagers than for ours. The racist caricature of inner-city black teenagers as incorrigibly rutting animals is no part of Mr. Besharov's argument, but it is an undeniable part of the public discussion of Norplant, condom distribution, and related policies. Those who live at the bottom margin of society, where the fragility of behavioral norms is most pronounced, are most in need of encouragement. What they do not need is a message from the larger society, conveyed through public policies such as the use of Norplant, that nothing better is expected of them.

There are other considerations that Mr. Besharov does not address adequately. He touches all too lightly, for example, on the epidemic of venereal diseases (now called sexually transmitted diseases of STDs). Some 65 per cent of STDs are found among teenagers, some of them resulting in sterility or even in death. Norplant is of no help in resisting STDs, and the sexual behavior that it facilitates is the very means of infection. Mr. Besharov also neglects the documented relationship between sexual promiscuity among teenagers and failing grades, drug and alcohol abuse, increased suicide rates, and other "at risk" hehavor. The entire society has a large stake in teenagers growing up to form stable and healthy marriages. Policies that have the effect of "normalizing" promiscuity make that goal much less likely.

Mr. Besharov notes the explosion of abortion rates after the 1973 Roe1 decision. Abortion is legal, many thought, therefore abortion is all right and therefore abortiobn rates soared. But policies and their consequences can move in other directions. For instance, we know that, in states that require parental consent for abortion, both teenage abortion rates and teenage pregnancy rates fall dramatically. What changes once can be changed again. "Each year," Mr. Besharov writes, "teenagers have another 400,000 abortions and 300,000 babies out of wedlock." There is nothing inevitable about that. It was not the case 25 years ago and it need not be the case ten years from now.

The Norplant proposal leans in one direction, aiming to contain the damage of the allegedly inevitable, and I suggest we should lean in the other, determined to reduce both abortions and out-of-wedlock births by challenging the sexual license that is the source of both.