Abstinence-only education in public schools is a touchy subject. The logic behind promoting abstinence is good, because if kids aren't having sex, they aren't getting pregnant and aren't spreading diseases. However, it's a bit naive to think raging hormones won't win out at some point and, without education on safe sex, fornicating teenagers will be left unprepared.
Perhaps the greatest weakness with abstinence-only education is that it doesn't recognize that students eventually grow up and start having sex.
So when is it okay to have sex? According to abstinence-only: never outside of marriage.
Well that's another can of worms. Can you tell students not to have sex until they're married? Seeing as premarital sex isn't illegal, it would have to fall under a moral code ... perhaps religion? Oh dear, now you're teaching religion in school.
Intelligent design didn't fly, so I find it hard to believe abstinence-only could gain much strength in a society that bans religion being taught in public schools. Yet every year the government pours millions of dollars into supporting abstinence until marriage education programs.
Mixing religion and government isn't the only problem of abstinence-only. According to Planned Parenthood, in 2005, two sex education advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services citing inaccurate information taught in abstinence-only programs. Poor information included, "one in five times condoms will fail for pregnancy." and "nearly 1 in 3 [people] will contract AIDS from [an] infected partner with 100 percent condom use." This came less than a year after U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif, released a study on abstinence-only education programs in the United States that found that 80 percent of the curricula contained false information. For instance, "in heterosexual sex, condoms fail to prevent HIV approximately 31 percent of the time."
Aside from poor information, the Waxman report found science and religion were sometimes blurred. In one example, conception was cited as "when life begins," and in other, a 43-day-old fetus was referred to as a "thinking person." Abstinence-only programs seem to be using statistics as scare tactics and portraying sex as something evil and deadly when it doesn't have to be.
But I digress. If the government is worried about teenage pregnancies and STDs, instead of introducing controversial moral standards why not teach contraceptives earlier and more thoroughly?
In addition, oral sex is often a precursor to teenage sex partly because it's perceived as safer and doesn't lead to pregnancy. However, STDs can be spread through oral sex, and few people use protection when engaging in oral sex.
If schools aren't teaching safe sex, who picks up the slack? My guess is either parents or MTV. Let's hope the kids watch television.
Of course, hearsay has always been popular. With poor education suddenly everything is a contraceptive: douching with Coca-Cola, using a potato as a diaphragm or just plain hoping for the best (which in this case may be less harmful than the other two).
I'm not saying you shouldn't wait until marriage. If you want to, that's your choice. I just think it's inappropriate to teach abstinence-only in place of safe-sex when abstinence as a passing mention may be more appropriate -- it's a simple idea: if you don't have sex you won't get pregnant and won't get sexually transmitted diseases (unless you're engaging in other sexual activities, but that's another issue).
Abstinence covered. Move on to condoms.
Megan Hein is a Cavalier Daily Health & Sexuality columnist. She can be reached at hein@cavalierdaily.com.
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