Comprehensive Sex Education

[Gabu]

The main problem that I have with abstinence-only sexual "education" is that it blatantly disregards reality in lieu of what the teacher wants to believe reality is.  The reality is that if you tell people not to do something, then that will probably only make them even more likely to do it.  A much more realistic approach to it is what we do here in British Columbia for sexual education: we say that abstinence is the only way to be 100% sure nothing bad will happen, which is true, but since we recognize that that's not very likely, we also tell the students what all of their other options are and then leave it up to them.

Personally, I feel that the abstinence-only approach insults the intelligence of the students receiving the information.  They're old enough to make choices in life; it's silly to just tell them not to have sex because it's bad and then expect them to obey.

[Gabu]

Actually, the Catholic schools here give the option of abstinence sex-education or safe-sex education, most require the latter, and I'm sure it's the same way in Philadelphia.

The problem with safe-sex education is that condoms don't protect you against everything, and many STDs are contracted with or without the use of condoms. Yes, it prevents against pregnancy, but there is only one 100% effective birth control, and that's abstinence. The reason why there have been so many pregnancies in the last 30 years is because we've changed our programs from abstinence programs to safe-sex programs.

Teach both

That's what I said regarding how we do things in BC: we teach that abstinence is the only way to be 100% sure nothing bad will happen, but we also teach about the alternatives because we recognize that having every student remain chaste is not terribly likely.

[Gabu]

Abstinence at 14 should not be unrealistic, at least usually.

For some it certainly isn't; for others it may be.  It's the teenage years that most people really start to explore their bodies and their sexuality.  I figure we might at least give them the information that they need to know about it so they don't make any stupid decisions.

[Gabu]

Yes, but by allowing safe-sex alternatives is simply encouraging students. You can't say "Yes, be abstinent, but if you're going to have sex use condoms", because teens are going to say no to the former and yes to the latter. If a teenager gets pregnant, that's their problem for banging up. Teenagers have sex at a far higher rate ever recorded in history (with 89% of teens having sex by the age of 19*). Obviously, the abstinence programs are being ignored. In addition, in 1990 Uganda started using abstinence programs instead of safe-sex methods and their AIDS rate dropped from around ~25% to ~5%. Abstinence programs work.

I still maintain the position that abstinence-only sexual education is insulting the intelligence of the students.  Do you honestly believe that if you tell a group of teenagers, "Don't have sex," that they'll all just merrily comply and never have sex until they're married and in a monogamous relationship?  Attempting to scare people doesn't work either.  If it did, nobody would smoke cigarettes anymore.  It's a much better idea just to give them the facts about everything and let them make their own decisions.

Also, if 89% of teens have sex before age 19, don't you think it would be a good idea to allow them to be informed about it?  If a teenager gets a pregnancy that could have been avoided had she been informed about birth control options instead of just being told not to have sex, I could hardly say that that's 100% her fault.

Do you have any statistics from North America?  North Americans are not Ugandans.

[Gabu]

Gabu, my point in that 89% of teens have had sex is that we have implimented safe-sex education, and we know that abstinence education DOES work and DOES decrease STDs. Now, pregnancies may not increase (since less are using condoms), but I think I'd rather have more pregnancies than people running around with STDs. In addition, I think many teenagers will learn about the burden of pregnancy and thus abstain from sex.

If we know that abstinence education does work and does decrease STDs, why not show me some statistics from North America?