Editorial: Teens need more options

Bristol Palin's "do as I say, not as I do" message about how hard it is to be a teenage mother is important for other young people to hear. But her lesson falls short by suggesting that any teen can successfully avoid premarital sex. She didn't.

The eldest daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin admitted only three months ago that "everyone should be abstinent, but it's just not realistic at all."

But now that she has become the "abstinence ambassador" for the Candies Foundation, she's changed her tune. "I do think [abstinence is] realistic. It's the harder choice, but it's the safest choice," she said.

Palin is right: Abstinence is the only foolproof way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. But because abstinence is the more difficult choice, as she put it, any viable lesson about avoiding teen pregnancy should include methods besides avoiding sex, including the use of condoms.

Palin made several TV appearances last week in observance of National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. The 18-year-old mom shared her own story since giving birth in December: Little sleep, and trying to balance school and motherhood, homework and diapers.

In other words, being an unwed teenage mother is hard work - even with support from a prominent family that can provide more advantages than most young girls can expect.

But teens need to hear about more than abstinence.

Studies have shown that abstinence-only education programs have had no measurable impact on delaying teens from having sex for the first time.

After a steady decline for years, the teen pregnancy rate increased 5 percent between 2005 and 2007. Three out of 10 girls in the United States will get pregnant by age 20. That percentage rises above 50 percent for Latinas and blacks.

Teenagers need frank talk about premarital sex that includes all of the viable options to avoid pregnancy.