ADULTS lie to kids all the time. Lies like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny don't hurt anyone because they are widely recognizable as lies -- at least by anyone over the age of 10. But sexual education instructors tell lies to teenagers that can be damaging, since those students are likely to believe them.
A study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute indicates that abstinence-only sex education - teaching that abstinence is the only way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases - is on the rise. It found that 23 percent of sex ed instructors taught only abstinence in 1999, up from a paltry 2 percent in 1988. This is a trend that needs to be reversed immediately. Instructors must present information on both abstinence and contraception in their sexual education programs.
Saying that abstinence is the best way to prevent pregnancy and STDs objectively is true - nothing besides abstinence will ever reach 100 percent prevention, and abstinence won't ever drop below 100 percent. But teaching that it is the only option is a harmful lie.
The lie isn't as noticeable because it is implied instead of directly stated. Instructors are not being asked, "Is there anything besides abstinence?" and answering, "No." But they might as well be.
The whole point of sexual education is to provide accurate information that students may not get from any other source. Sex ed is unlike any other area of education in that students may not have any background knowledge to supplement and reinforce what they learn in class. What their sex ed teacher tells them frequently is everything they know. As a result, they're more likely to accept what their teacher tells without questioning it - because they don't have any grounds to question it.
When teachers avoid discussing everything besides abstinence, they effectively tell students that there isn't anything else. As far as some teenagers know, there isn't. The instructors are not only telling a lie, they're telling a very believable one by playing on teenagers' ignorance. This makes the lie more powerful, and hence, more harmful.
By teaching abstinence only, teachers are presenting two messages. The first is their intended message - that abstinence is desirable. But at the same time, their unspoken message is that contraception is not. That may have been an acceptable message 60 years ago, but it isn't now.
Society at large no longer believes in waiting until marriage to have sex. It does believe in using contraceptives. Different people may choose to lament or celebrate those facts. But everyone should recognize their truth and act accordingly.
If teachers want to try to convince students to abstain, fine. Let them present abstinence as the best choice. But they must make it clear that it is not the only choice - that if students choose to have sex, they do have alternatives that will help protect them and their partner. Since some, if not most, students will have sex before they get married, students need to know about their alternatives. Contraception must be part of the curriculum.
Proponents of abstinence-only education will likely respond by citing that in recent years, the teenage pregnancy rate has been near a record low.
But that low rate didn't get that way because of abstinence, and it won't stay low long if abstinence is the only preventative measure taught. AGI's research indicates that only about one-fourth of the drop in pregnancy rate is due to abstinence. The other three-fourths is due to contraceptive use. If schools continue to discourage the use of contraceptives in favor of abstinence, the rate will go back up.
The underlying problem in this situation is that an older generation wants to impose its morals on a younger one. This is a natural impulse. Teachers and those who design education curriculum naturally want to pass on what they believe to be true and avoid passing on what they have rejected.
But times change, and moral attitudes change with them. That may be tough for parents and teachers to accept, but they must.
They cannot expect modern teenagers to adopt their parents' morals without question or revision. Each generation must examine morality and re-conceive a set of values that it accepts as standard. This reevaluation is necessary because morals don't exist in a vacuum - they inextricably are tied to and shaped by changing social conditions.
Teachers should not be in the business of telling students what to think or of making moral decisions for them. This is what abstinence-only education does. Rather, teachers should be in the business of teaching students to think for themselves and preparing them to be able to make good moral choices for themselves. To do this, they cannot withhold information in order to promote their own moral agenda. Abstinence-only education must stop.
(Bryan Maxwell is a Cavalier Daily associate editor.)
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