How to Bring An End to the War Over Sex Ed

Teaching kids just about abstinence won't prevent teen pregnancies — and neither will focusing solely on safe sex. But one county in South Carolina is finding success by doing both

Erika Larsen / Redux for TIME

Jewels Morris-Davis, with infant simulator, was on track to be a teen-pregnancy stat until she walked into Kristen Jordan's sex-ed class.

Jewels Morris-Davis is a no-nonsense kind of girl. When the high school sophomore turned 16 recently, she didn't celebrate with any My Super Sweet 16 foolishness. Nor did she rush to get her driver's license and race around the back roads in this rural northwest corner of South Carolina. But Jewels did quietly revel in one achievement. "I am," she says a few weeks later, a proud smile spreading across her face, "the first person in my family to reach 16 without getting pregnant--or getting somebody pregnant."

Five years ago, Jewels was firmly on track to continue the family tradition of...

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