Parents will now be able to choose one of the following three options:
A. Abstinence-only education
B. Abstinence and contraception education together
C. No sex education at all. It was much ado about nothing because the overwhelming majority of parents in this country now support comprehensive sex ed.
This was borne out by a Kaiser Family Foundation study several years ago which showed that 95 percent of parents of middle school students said contraceptive methods were “appropriate topics” for school health classes. In short, parents seem to know what some conservative politicians won’t admit: that abstinence-only education doesn’t work.
The Center for Disease Control reports that one-third of students have sex by the time they are in ninth grade, but the age for first time sex is much lower in some cities, like Baltimore, where the average first encounter takes place at age 14. Also, the rate of teen pregnancy has been on the rise for the past two years, with over 1 million teenagers becoming pregnant each year. In fact, the United States’ teen pregnancy rate is now twice that of the United Kingdom, and three times that of Canada. The conservative Republican solution to the teen sex and pregnancy problem is for young people to “just say no.”
But statistics don’t support that headin- the-sand approach. Just ask Bristol Palin, who, despite her mom’s political leanings, said that abstinence-only education is a bust. Yet over the past eight years the federal government continued to fund a failed program, the effects of which were in sharp contrast to the doctrine of fiscal conservatives.
That’s because teen pregnancy costs the United States about $7 billion each year, factoring in the expenses of child care, public assistance, lost tax revenues, foster care and involvement with the criminal justice system. Fortunately, the Obama-led Congress is about to reverse course, with Senate bill 611 and HR 1551, now in committee. The new legislation would appropriate $50 million per year in support of a program that is now being called “Abstinence Plus.” Passage of such a bill would be a step in the right direction because, currently, one-third of the states do not even require public schools to offer sex education of anykind. Dangling federal monies might persuade those backward states to join the 21 st century.
Some
school systems have jumped out in front of this debate. South Carolina,
for example, is the only state that mandates a certain number of hours
schools must devote to sexuality education. The result has been a sharp
drop in teen pregnancy.
Meanwhile, the city of Pittsburgh’s
school board, responding to concerns by parents over rising teen
pregnancy rates, voted 8 to 1 in February to replace their
abstinence-only program with a comprehensive sex education curriculum.
Winston-Salem
Forsyth County School has also been ahead of the curve in offering a
comprehensive approach to family life education. And recently,
Superintendant Don Martin released a new birth control video for
viewing by 7 th and 9 th graders.
The video, titled “Too
Young,” was written by Chris Runge and produced by his Cable 2 staff.
It is informative without being preachy, and it encourages students to
take control of their own bodies. Yes, the video promotes abstinence as
the best path for students to follow, but it does so by being frank
with kids about the dangers of sexually transmitted disease. In one
passage, the narrator says, “A teenager’s body won’t suffer from not
having sex”. But that’s not where “Too Young” ends. After making a case
for abstinence, it then goes into great detail about various types of
contraception that are available, ranging from condoms to pills, and
even periodic injection of Depo Provera, which temporarily stops a
woman’s body from producing eggs. The Cable2 video also includes
testimonials from real teenagers who had unprotected sex at an early
age, and became unintentional parents as a result.
One young
mother told of her baby’s low birth weight. Another lamented that she
had to drop out of school and couldn’t graduate with her friends. And
then there was the teen father who, with tears in his eyes, said he
loved his baby, but couldn’t pay the rent. These are words and images
that will stay with students who view “Too Young.” And for the record,
the video is never shown to boys and girls together. The segregated
viewings provide a comfort level that can lead to more open and
substantive discourse.
Thus far, feedback from students has
been positive. So too from local parents, 99 percent of whom opted to
let their children benefit from comprehensive sex education.
And
so it would seem that conservative Republicans on the state and federal
level have been wasting our time and money on backwards-thinking
programs that haven’t worked, just so they could troll for votes from a
tiny minority of parents.
Their pathetic dogma has cost our
country both human and capital resources that we can never recover.
Fortunately many communities are now on the right track towards
preventing disease and teen pregnancy. Now if we could only come up
with a program that would prevent diseased minds from running for
office.
Jim is the host of “Triad Today,” airing on Fridays at 6:30 a.m. on ABC 45 (cable channel 7) and Sundays at 10 p.m. on WMYV (cable channel 15).
