Pam Stenzel doesn’t believe in abortion, not even in cases of rape or incest.
Her reasons are very personal. Stenzel was conceived after her birth mom, at age 15, was raped. Despite the traumatic circumstances, the birth mom carried her baby girl to term. Stenzel, 47, grew up in an adoptive home, the oldest of eight children — seven of them adopted.
She shares her story openly to the half-million teenagers she talks to each year around the world. Her message includes another conviction: She doesn’t want another teen to tell her, “Nobody told me” about facts related to premarital sex.
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“I’m not here to tell you not to have sex,” she says in her presentations, some of them captured on YouTube. “I’m here to tell you the facts, and thenyou can decide for yourselves what to do.”
Stenzel, who has spoken to groups in Merced and elsewhere in the valley, and whose nonreligious videos have been approved for use in area school districts, is passionate about giving teens and young adults straight talk about sex.
After graduating from Liberty University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, the Minnesota resident worked for nine years with young women in crisis pregnancies.
“One of the things we found out in the 1980s was, if there was a pregnancy test and it was negative, it was like, ‘See you later.’ we weren’t addressing the behavior,” Stenzel said in a phone interview Wednesday from her home. “We didn’t know about sexually transmitted disease (STD) issues. AIDS had just come onto the scene. I really felt we were not telling teenagers the reality of the consequences they were making.
“I would go to youth pastors and say, ‘I would much rather talk to your teenager in church on Wednesday night than in my clinic on Thursday morning.’ their reaction: ‘Not our kids. Not our church kids.’ yes, the church kids were having sex, too.
“My philosophy is not to make choices for teenagers. I’m not the sex police. I’m not going on dates with them. What we have to do is tell them the truth. they need to have the information.”
One fact she shares: although a condom can be effective in preventing pregnancy, it is far less likely to prevent an STD such as chlamydia. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 2.3 million people in the United States have the disease, but most do not know it. although easily treated if caught early, the CDC Web site says, because “symptoms of chlamydia are usually mild or absent, serious complications that cause irreversible damage, including infertility, can occur ‘silently’ before a woman ever recognizes a problem.”
It’s that kind of information that Stenzel believes should be shared with teens. “Out of the 30 major STDs that we’re dealing with, 26 of them mainly damage women,” she said. “Does she know that? Does she know she’s going to be the one who will pay the price?
“We have the medical information, and it’s a travesty that we’re not giving it to (teens). I’m not going to tell you chlamydia is a big deal if it damages your fallopian tubes and you can never have children. I’ll simply give you the information. A girl can tell me, ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’ But she can’t come back 15 years from now and say, ‘I’m ready to have a baby now.’ Too bad; you made the decision when you were 15 and now you have to live with it.”
That kind of talk has led to charges from people in Planned Parenthood and SIECUS (the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) that Stenzel uses scare tactics in her presentations.