Just as the Dutch have learned to hold back the sea, they seem to have mastered the tide of teen pregnancy. A campaign of sex education and free contraceptives seems to be the basis of a long-term reduction that has the Netherlands leading the Western world.

By 1995, 70% of sexually active Dutch 18-year-old girls and 40% of 15- to 17-year-olds were using birth control pills. Eighty-five percent of teens used a condom, the Pill, or both during their first sexual experience. Today, fewer than 1% of 15- to 17-year-old girls in the Netherlands get pregnant each year. According to Dr. Simone Buitendijk of the Dutch Institute for Applied Scientific Research, in an interview with Reuters Medical News, "Teenage pregnancy seems virtually eliminated as a health and social problem in the Netherlands."

In contrast, the U.S. government directs $50 million a year to state programs that exclusively teach "the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity." The teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. has declined substantially over the last decade; however, according to a 1997 news release from the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), 40% of the females in this country become pregnant at some time before they reach the age of 20. In addition, on a state-by-state basis, the annual teen pregnancy rate varies from 5.9% in North Dakota to 15.9% in California. Overall in the U.S., each year, 10% of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 become pregnant.

Are Dutch society and young people so different from their U.S. counterparts? Youth sexuality and sex education are accepted facts of life in the Netherlands. But in the U.S., debate rages over the content of sexuality education: "abstinence-only" vs. a broader curriculum including contraception, STD risk, and sexual identity. The European educational approach is based more on reality than morality. "In Holland," says Dr. Buitendijk, "teens know about sexuality and about procreation, how it works and what you should do not to become pregnant. Their peers know, and it is a very socially acceptable thing to prevent pregnancy." Dutch teens have ready, state-funded access to contraceptives, and they use them because of their knowledge of reproduction and contraception and the prevailing attitude of acceptance toward teen sexuality.

According to a February 2001 report from AGI, "Sex Education: Politicians, Parents, Teachers and Teens," there is now a great disparity in America between the inclinations of policymakers and the needs and desires of students and parents regarding sexuality education. Teachers are caught in the middle, between what they believe should be taught and what they are allowed to say. Perhaps news of the dramatic reduction in teen pregnancy effected by the Dutch approach will help open a new dialogue between the proponents of comprehensive sexuality education and the advocates of "abstinence only" programs.