Youth depression and suicide

Your Sept. 29 article on high rates of depression and suicidal thoughts among our areas youth is truly disturbing. Unfortunately, Spokane Public Schools’ proposed Planned Parenthood sex-ed curriculum “Get Real” will only make this problem worse. While this curriculum repeatedly points youth toward sexual activity “when they are ready,” what it doesn’t tell them is the effects of teen sexual activity on depression and suicide rates.

According to a survey by the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, sexually active girls are more than three times more likely to struggle with depression than their non-sexually active peers (25.3 percent vs. 7.7 percent), while roughly the same is true for sexually active boys (8.3 percent vs. 3.4 percent). But it is attempted suicide rates that should make every parent wake up. Sexually active teen girls will attempt suicide at three times the rate of sexually inactive girls (14.3 percent vs. 5.1 percent), while sexually active teen boys are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than abstinent peers (6 percent vs. 0.7 percent).

Why is it that no one is telling teens about this in all the supposed “comprehensive sex education” being pushed in our schools?

John Repsold

Spokane