The Family Policy Council of West Virginia issued a news release Wednesday saying that policies that help adolescents access birth control would lead to more teen sex.

On Monday, a variety of groups led by the reproductive rights organization WV FREE had held a press conference where they announced support for a House of Delegates proposal (HB 4272) to make insurers cover contraceptives for teens on their parents' health plans.

In the Family Policy Council press release, President Jeremy Dys said WV FREE wants "more of our children to experiment with risky, premarital sexual behavior while using contraceptives with a failure rate second only to the Washington Generals," referring to the basketball team known for its losing streak against the Harlem Globetrotters.

The groups that held the press conference Monday said they hoped that abortion opponents would support the insurance legislation, saying the bill would cut down on abortions and unintended pregnancies. West Virginia ranks 18th in the nation for its teen birth rate.

But Dys told the Gazette he believes the legislation "misses the point." 

"If teenage pregnancy is a concern to our state, why isn't [abstinence] on the table?" he said.

Dys also said that contraceptives fail "nine times out of ten," but then said he was being hyperbolic.

According to the Federal Drug Administration's Office of Women's Health, failure rates for common contraceptive methods range from 1 percent for sterilization surgeries and intrauterine devices, to 32 percent for contraceptive sponges used with spermicide.

WV FREE Executive Director Margaret Chapman Pomponio said her group supports teaching kids abstinence as part of "a broader, comprehensive approach" to sex education, one that also includes information on contraceptives

"We don't advocate or promote teen sexual activity, but we need to be realistic and provide them with real information, and help them make informed decisions as they become young adults," she said.

A study published last week in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine suggested that abstinence education could delay sexual activity among adolescents. 

Dys cited that study as a reason to promote abstinence in West Virginia.

"If the goal is to drive down teenage pregnancy, then we need to have all the facts in front of the Legislature," he said.

Critics of abstinence-only education, such as the Guttmacher Institute, have said the study published last week focused on an abstinence curriculum that was different from the rigid approach that received significant federal funding until this year.

For instance, the curriculum the researchers studied did not encourage children to delay sex until marriage, but rather until they were ready to handle the consequences of sex, according to a Guttmacher review of the study. The program also did not disparage contraception.

@tag:Reach Alison Knezevich at alis...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1240.