Live, from Washington: 'Crossfire.'
On the left: Mike Kinsley
On the right: John Sununu
Tonight: “The Right Prescription?”
In the crossfire:
Rosetta Stith, principal of Paquin High School,
and Vice Chair of the Maryland
Governor's Commision on Welfare Policy,
and Dr. William Archer, former
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs
at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Good evening and welcome to 'Crossfire.'
I'm Juan Williams sitting in for Michael Kinsley.
It's been hailed as the foolproof contraceptive
and it's been damned as a tool of
Orwellian social control.
The device is Norplant - six slender sticks
containing hormones that are
surgically placed under the skin of
a woman's upper arm.
The device can remain in place, preventing
unwanted pregnancies for up to five years.
Norplant's effectiveness has made it
a target for critics.
Some contend the device
may encourage promiscuity.
Others contend that the government may soon
coerce poor women to have Norplant implants
as a prerequisite for welfare.
Tonight, we'll try to get to the heart of
this explosive
issue that combines sex, race, and class
into one big social dilemma.
John?
Dr. Stith, you run the school where some of
the teenagers have received the surgical procedure
and this implant.
Isn't there somewhat of a
schizophrenic approach to all of this?
First we had folks running out saying
we had to distribute condoms for free
in schools to keep kids from being exposed to AIDS.
Now, in response to the problem
associated with teenage pregnancy,
we ask them to have the Norplant implant.
Doesn't the Norplant implant,
for example, make it easier for
kids to get re-exposed to AIDS because
they won't use a condom?
No, not if you have a school like mine—the
answer's no.
And the reason is, and the reason why it's
at my school
is because I have a school for young women
who
are pregnant and/or parents, and the reason
why
I chose it is because the product was already
out there.
When you have a subpopulation of pregnant
girls
and pregnant women, the product becomes
accessible to them.
One of the things that we did was
to score what were the problems with the product,
if any, and then we designed a program for
the young women at my school.
I don't agree with
anything handed out or given to kids, just
given to kids.
At the school, when girls ask for Norplant,
we want to
make sure that they are a good health candidate.
If they are contrary to the product, they
don't get it.
Two things occur, and that is counseling to
make sure
they understand what the product is, and secondly,
they understand no matter what contraception
they use, it must be followed, and reinforced,
by
the use of a condom.
We're talking about a surgical procedure,
that, for
a period of time, up to five years, essentially
sterilizes
these young ladies.
Juan used the word "Orwellian"
in his introduction.
It is Orwellian.
To a point, but you've got to understand what
these
young women have been though.
They have
gone through a lot of things.
They've seen a lot of
things.
For instance, the pill was out there.
That hasn't
worked.
These young women are looking at this
particular product for those who choose it,
level of maturity and lifestyle, as a way
if they've
already made a life, this gives them an opportunity
to finish high school and go to college.
They're not using the condoms
that were being distributed?
My girs, no.
Aren't you then increasing the likelihood
of
casual sex without condoms
and exposing their risk of sexual transmission?
I misunderstood your question in terms of
using
condoms, in other words just handing out condoms,
we didn't do that, but girls understand that
no matter whether it's an oral, an implant,
or a self-inserted product it must be reinforced
by
the use of a condom.
I'd like to see someone place
the same emphasis on the young men.
We now
have some young women who are
embracing abstinence as a result of all these
categories that have come out.
Mr. Archer, let me read to you
something from the National Review.
Bill Buckley, the godfather of conservatism
in this country, wrote:
"Better a prophylactic than an abortion, and
if we go
for birth control, then the more efficient,
the better."
What's wrong with that?
Well, I think that I would criticize that
statement
because the fact is is I don't think that
Bill Buckley...
I read that very article and intended to write
him
a letter.
And there was a response to that
in the National Review, which criticized the
fact that
indeed, these girls who get Norplant, and,
yes,
we want, we are concerned about whether
they get pregnant or not, but the biggest
concern
is that condoms, even though they reduce the
risk
of AIDS, they don't reduce the risk of all
the other STDs
that they, these girls confront.
These girls are at
significant risk of things like chlamydia,
which causes
permanent sterility, and human pappiloma virus,
which
causes cervical cancer with rates as high
as
40% and 60% of these diseases.
So, what we're
concerned about, and I'm an obstetrician-gynecologist,
I've worked with women, I trained in the inner-city
of Memphis, Tennessee, and I understand the
concern
about keeping girls from getting pregnant,
but you have
to give more than a Norplant stick to them
to
keep them healthy and whole.
We have to look
at these girls in a holistic fashion.
I just haven't heard conservatives raising
a voice of great
concern about these young women's social condition
and health prior to Norplant.
All of a sudden it's
the concern about Norplant.
Why, all of a sudden,
Norplant, when you have as a fact that about
40 to 60
percent of the pregnancies in this country
are unintended
and here's a device that will eliminate unintended
pregnancy?
It may eliminate the unintended pregnancy,
but for an adolescent who ... unfortunately,
you're right.
Proverty is not necessarily ... is not being
eradicated,
even when women get Norplant,
and that is the biggest concern.
If we engender them
in a lifestyle which is ... which causes alienation,
in other words multiple partners ... sexuality
with multiple partners may indeed increase
the likelihood ...
Now, didn't you just make a leap?
You're saying Norplant necessarily means they're
going to have multiple sexual partners.
Isn't that a leap?
We know that adolescents that get involved
in sex before
they're 18 are very likely ...
20% will have more than 11 partners and
45% will have more than 4 partners.
Adolescents are risk takers by nature, they're
likely
to have multiple partners.
Monogamy for adolescents
means 3 months of a relationship, and then
another relationship, which we call serial
monogamy.
And so, indeed, there was an article in the
Washington...
I don't see any connection between Norplant
...
They're having, they are doing...
Dr. Stith, do you want to respond?
Yes, they are having multiple partners without
Norplant,
and what we're saying, and I can understand
what you're sying, but as far as we're concerned,
Norplant, and girls hear this,
they made a big deal about the pill and now
Norplant.
You make such a big deal about it,
but you do nothing to change their life.
As an educator Ihave no problem with choice
as long
as it is an informed one, an explained one,
and we monitor.
But, this big to-do, but there's more to their
life, but
you don't do anything about and girls are
hearing it.
Dr. Stith, you made a point of the fact that
you think that
the use of Norplant has actually reduced the
level
of promiscuity in some of the ladies there
with you?
I didn't say that, I did not say that.
What it has done is,
for those girls whose lifestyles,
and older girls are choosing Norplant, not
our younger girls.
It's the older girls who have maybe 2 and
3 kids
who want to get a life now.
Now, it's not encouraging,
and my girls will tell you that.
And as a matter of fact,
we do have now some young girls who are saying
"I'm sick of it, I'm tired, no body is out
there to help me,
I'm just going to abstain."
But, in fact, the reality of something like
Norplant is that
it actually promotes promiscuity.
It makes sex so,
makes them feel that sex can be safe on a
casual basis.
Not in my school, it doesn't.
At my school, it does not.
What is the fantastic factor that you have
discovered?
The fantastic factor that we have discovered
is that,
first of all, girls have to see to be.
They are seeing how their lives are not going
anywhere.
They've watched their mothers, aunts, cousins
and...
What is Norplant ... Why is Norplant essential
for that?
Why isn't that kind of education the fundamental
approach that ought to be taken,
independent of whether Norplant is there?
It is not exclusive, but what it does for
some girls,
because they don't have adults there in their
home;
they have older children, and what it does
for some girls is ... who cannot keep remembering,
their lives are so filled, it takes away the
memory
of a routine of taking a pill.
That's all.
It doesn't change anything
about their knowing about the condom...
Now, Dr. Archer, isn't that right?
That this helps young women who might not
be
so personally responsible to be sure that
she's
not going to get pregnant, that she'll be
able
to get through school, go on to college...
Isn't that a reality for especially poor young
women
who don't always have equal access to healthcare?
If that were really the case, then I would
say that
I would agree, but we also have the dilemma
that Dr. Stith is working in a particular
type of school.
We certainly don't want to...
Just because she may have implemented in this,
we don't want to set policy for every school
in America
that we would provide Norplant in every single
school
in America, because it does send a signal
to girls,
and the boys, that we are expecting that they
will be
involved in sexual activity.
The data is very clear on this.
Whether you look at Family Planning Perspectives,
Marsiglio and Mott,
Deborah Dawson and Family Planning Perspectives,
the National survey on Adolescent Males
shows that if you provide and teach
about contraception, you'll increase the likelihood
of the use of the contraception, but significantly
you
will increase the sexual activity rates
and pregnancy rates based on every other data
of school-based clinics have not gone down,
so...
I have two comments to make in terms of this:
Data is one thing, I'm doing day-to-day stuff,
and we're not talking about every school—
we're talking about schools that have
school-based clinics, that will do
the medical follow-up...
Not to have them in every place.
We're talking
about having a good medical follow-up
for those girls, and boys as well.
We've gotta pause for a minute and when we
do,
we'll come back and continue the discussion
on Norplant, and we'll ask whether the rush
to implant Norplant in inner-city teenagers
may be racially motivated.
Welcome back to 'Crossfire.'
Tonight,
we're discussing Norplant, the birth control
device
that may soon be used widely by teenage girls,
particularly in our inner cities.
Our guests are Dr. William Archer, former
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population
Affairs
in the Department of Health and Human Services,
and Dr. Rosetta Stith, Vice Chairman of the
Maryland Governor's Commission on Welfare
Policy,
and Principal of a high school in Baltimore
that provides Norplant to some of its students.
Dr. Stith, certainly the idea that Norplant
may be used either as a requirement
or with an incentive in our inner cities suggests
to some that there might be a racial motivation,
since most of the folks in our inner cities
are minorities.
Well, that's true, but as the Vice Chair of
the Governor's ... of Welfare Reform,
the governor is not mandating anyone
on what he is doing.
I think it's been misunderstood.
What he is doing is providing an opportunity
because it was cost-prohibitive.
That's one of the reasons it's at my school.
But that's cost accounting morality.
You can't justify something like this
just because the cost accountants
say it's a good thing to do?
No, you can't, but then when you look at the
cost
of raising a kid for the next 21 years, you
can.
And basically, if the appropriate information
and counseling is provided,
the young woman can make a choice.
How is she goig to be incentivized to do this?
Are you going to give her extra welfare?
No, but there are going to be some other developmental
..
Will you keep welfare from her if she doesn't?
No.
No.
But there are going to be some other incentives
built in...
Why is this related to the welfare program,
then?
This is something that has come up.
This has come up and it was basically coincidental,
but it is going to be provided.
Why the focus in our inner cities?
Well, for instance when you say inner cities,
it just happens to be inner cities but it
will be
made available across the state of Maryland.
So, you think anyone who suggests
that there might be a racial motivation
to try and push this into our inner cities
is wrong?
Well, from my standpoint, because at my school
I have other races.
I mean, there is not
a black Norplant or white Norplant or Hispanic
Norplant.
There isn't.
When the product is out there,
if you don't want kids to get it, then don't
put it ...
But the school is predominantly minority,
isn't it?
And that's only by geographics.
Now, Dr. Archer, you were in the Bush administration,
Undersecretary of Population Control,
but isn't that the same administration that
was
trying to put limits on federal funding for
abortions,
gag rules on doctors to talk about abortion
counseling?
Here we have something that would limit
that kind of crisis in a young woman's life.
It would prevent pregnancy,
prevent the need for abortion, and yet
you line up as an opponent of it?
I think that the abortion issue is just a
non-issue in this.
I am as concerned about unplanned pregnancy
as anybody else.
I think, though that you have to
look at a new paradigm.
We've tried contraceptive programs for teenagers,
now, because, the funny thing is we continue
to support them and fund them, and yet we
want
to do school-based clinics in every school
in America.
They've been proven not to work, now, because,
obviously they're not working, we wouldn't
want
to put Norplant in because it is an effective
contraception,
but the real issue here is that
teenagers are not being fully served.
They're not being taught about
the issues of virtue in their life.
The issues of integrity,
of ... and what happens in these inner cities,
and to all teenagers in America is there's
a growing sense of alienation.
Girls feel used
in the sexual relationship.
Boys feel that
they have used someone else in that
sexual relationship, and what we know from
data
is that girls that get involved in sex
lower their career goals,
and boys that get involved in sex
lower their grades.
This was the study that was done in Indiana
...
Dr. Archer, Doctor, may Iask a question: You
keep
going back to data, and I'm doing day-to-day.
Who, if not the schools, is going to do ...
What's missing is morals and values and character.
Everybody talks about the data, I'm talking
about
day-to-day, I'm talking about morality,
I'm talking about reality.
Who is going to do this?
It's obvious that data's out there.
We need to
turn this stuff around and help the kids,
and if you talk about adults as being home
with parents,
if you realize who you're data, and I'm talking
about
day-to-day, because I'm talking to people
who
are adults in that house, you're not dealing
with adults.
You're dealing with older children,
so during the decade for the nineties.
When are we
going to turn this stuff around and just realize
what is not happening to the kids?
Let's go into the schools, Dr. Stith.
You talk
about morality, values, and character.
When you make it easy for kids in school and
you argue that it's the older kids not the
younger kids,
but you know the way it happens in schools,
it eventually moves its way down.
How do you make it easier for them to understand
the morality, the value, and the character
when you make it easier for them to have casual
sex?
No, see, you keep talking about casual sex,
and this is
happening to kids where there is no structure,
and there is no guidance.
You keep talking about casual, but in where
I am ...
Easy sex.
Daily sex.
Frequent sex.
What phrase do you want me to use?
If you talk about sex you can talk about adults.
If you want ...
the issue, then let's get to the issue of
safe sex
for everybody and then we wouldn't have this
conversation.
You don't think that Norplant, in combination
with
or without the use of condoms, is making kids
think
that there is no consequence at all to sex?
No, because of the way in which our school
system is
beginning to help girls and boys to realize
the consequence at the end of the road.
Kids have to see to be -
they're not seeing anything in their neighborhood.
All they're seing right now are people with
no clothes on
singing, I mean, ...
Wait a second, John Sununu, are you telling
me that
the average American couple...
In fact, I know the numbers: 90% of American
couples
use some form of contraceptive...
why are you going to deprive a poor teenager...
We're talking about Norplant in schools.
Right!
And we're talking about condoms.
You'd be
opposed to condoms, wouldn't you, John?
I'm opposed to distributing condoms in school
because it sends a message to kids that promiscuity
is okay.
Alright, alright.
So, anything...
You don't see a message there?
I don't see the message there ... I see a
reality there that shows
lots of pregnant women ruining their lives
at young ages.
Explain to me the message of condoms plus
Norplant.
The message of condoms plus Norplant is there
is a way
for you to control this sexual activity so
that it doesn't
limit your chances in life.
Where's the control?
You talking about condoms doing something,
what do you
think they're going to do?
They may reduce AIDS for
the kids in communities where the rate of
AIDS is low.
The
CDC says that as long as the prevalence of
disease is low,
then condoms offer significant protection,
but they don't
offer protection from human pappiloma virus,
and chlamydia...
...you don't care about those diseases?
You must not care about a woman having
frequent pregnancies - that's big health risk,
isn't it?
And, ii you were the mother of a young girl
on
her second pregnancy at the age 15 or 16,
you're telling me you wouldn't talk to her
about Norplant?
I would talk to her about a lot of different
things.
I would would talk to her about,
I think the whole option of giving her hope
about her life,
telling her that she's a wonderful person,
that there's a bigger thing out there...
There's a difference between the mother talking
to her
and someone in the school talking to her..
So you guys don't want Dr. Stith talking to
her.
I don't want a social worker replacing the
parent.
Hang on just a second, because, when we come
back,
we're going to hear what someone in the school
has to say to John Sununu about the realities
of Norplant.
Dr. Archer, when you're a judge, let's say,
and you're
faced with a woman who's been found guilty
of child abuse or having children who have
fetal alcohol syndrome... crack babies, wouldn't
you want
to talk to that woman about Norplant?
I think she needs more than Norplant.
There is a lot
going on in that woman's life, and just to
give her Norplant
and send her back out to the streets would
be
a great travesty.
She has a lot of difficulty in her life.
She needs somebody who has an irrational belief
that this
is a wonderful person, and to work with her
so that
she can look for a different thing in life.
Dr. Stith, do you want a judge telling your
girl
she has to have Norplant?
No, I don't, but do answer his question, realistically,
you can't do anything for her but to give
her a start,
and that start to help her is going to be
appropriate counseling...
No no no, I din't say 'impose,' but...
That's what the judge would be doing.
You aasked me
if I were a judge would I not want to give
this girl a Norplant.
That would be imposing it on her.
That would be coercing her on to it.
You are going to have to give her a start.
You're going to have to give her a start.
But it isn't Norplant.
And what we do ... that's what we don't do.
And condoms are not a start for that...
Do you want teenagers able to
get Norplant without parental consent?
Well, that's a law in the state of Maryland
anyway,
so I don't have control over that.
I told you, I don't...
Is it good policy?
To a point.
And I'll give a scenario.
We have... listen to me.
We had kids who don't have parents;
whose parents are alcoholics, and I have kids
in my school right now who don't have adults
to help ...
How about a child who comes from a two-parent
family
- let's give her the best possible break there
is.
Do you want her to be able to
put Norplant in without parental consent?
Let me say this: In my school, it is an option.
The parents come in to do that.
We don't shut out anybody that's involved
in her life.
You don't have a system there where that young
lady
can get Norplant without her parents’ paremission?
Yes she can, but ..
Why should people in a state, let's say New
Hampshire,
former governor, continue to pay for a woman
who's having multiple children and exhibiting
signs of ...
...state government or local government or
even
the school teachers replacing the parents.
So, everyone has to pay for those children
and
bear the consequences of someone who's
not raising their family correctly?
There's a long-term importance to a family
structure,
especially in those cases where where it might
be working.
But it doesn't exist in many instances, and
I keep hearing
you talk about parents.
These kids don't have a parent.
They have an older kid.
I'm afraid we've gotta go.
Thank you,
Dr. Stith, Dr. Archer for joining us.
We'll be back in a second, and Juan and I
will review what we've reviewed.
For a transcript, send $5.00 to Journal Graphics
Incorporated,
1535 Grant Street, Denver, Colorado, 80203,
or call (303) 831-9000.
Juan, first they pushed condoms in schools,
now
they're pushing the Norplant in schools.
No matter how you try and rationalize it,
the kids are
going to look at Norplant as a substitute
for condoms,
they'll exposing themselves to sexually-transmitted
disease.
That's a dumb idea.
John, we have to teach family values in this
country.
I don't have any doubt about it.
But, when you get into the situation where
children are
running the streets wild and not having any
kind of parental supervision, there is a need
for the government to at some point say
"here is an alternative, young person."
Juan, how can you justify eliminating pregnancies
at the risk of expanding disease,
sexually-transmitted disease in teenagers?
I don't hink it increases the risk; in fact,
I think it decreases it, because it says to
the young person
"you can control your sexuality and your future..."
It tells them casual sex is okay with almost
anybody.
I hope not, John.
From the left,
I'm Juan Williams.
Goodnight from 'Crossfire.'
And from the right, I'm John Sununu.
Join us again tomorrow night for another edition
of 'Crossfire.'
'Prime News' is next - here's Bernie Shaw
with a look at the headlines.
Bernie?
Thank you, John.
Coming up, Secretary of Defense Aspin
defends his base closing plan
before the commission that will put together
the final list.
Across the eastern half of hte United States,
digging out and heading back to work,
after one of the worst storms in history.
And Russian president Boris Yeltsin after
the congress.
Those stories and more, next on 'Prime News.'
