Advocating sexual miseducation

Recently, the sex education debate has gotten major media attention. From a segment on MTV's "Fight For Your Rights" to political debate shows like Donahue, President Bush's position that only abstinence-only education programs shall be federally funded has sparked tempers. The irony of this heated debate is that both sides seem to agree that abstinence is the best choice. Although many groups advocate either abstinence-only or comprehensive approaches to sex education, the leading groups seem to be the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), which promotes comprehensive sex ed and Concerned Women for America (CWA) which is staunchly abstinence-only. \nThe basic difference between these groups is as follows: SIECUS (www.siecus.org) supports comprehensive sex-ed which means not only teaching teens about abstinence, but also about birth control and how to make responsible decisions about sex, including avoiding peer pressure to be sexually active. CWA (www.cwfa.org) promotes abstinence-only sex education where students are taught that sex is only appropriate in the context of a heterosexual marriage, and generally uses scare tactics to relay this message. The only mention of birth control in these programs is a very outdated notion that condoms and other forms of birth control have relatively high rates of failure. This latter viewpoint is the only one our government will fund. \nCWA acts as a moral judge for this country. They teach that pre-marital sex is the root of all our social ills. They try to alarm us with statistics like "40 percent of all American births and 80 percent of minority births will occur out of wedlock." They go on to say that these children are more likely to be impoverished and on welfare. They also claim these unwed mothers are more likely to be beaten by their husbands and are more inclined to drug and cigarette use. And all of these things happen because they chose to have sex outside of marriage? I would also mention, not surprisingly, that none of these claims are backed up with any studies.\nSIECUS worries about the psychological effects of the abstinence-only message. Students from single-parent households are being told they are products of immorality. Until homosexual marriages are legally recognized, what should gay and lesbian students wait for? The current system is not realistically effective in a society as diverse as ours. Abstinence-only programs are about more than sex. They are about values, many of which a good percentage of Americans don't necessarily reflect or believe in, like the traditional family structure. SIECUS believes a more effective message is: teach our youth to wait, but also teach them how to be safe if they don't. \nFifty percent of teenagers are sexually active. That number increases to 80 percent in the 18 to 24 age bracket. Those numbers indicate a clear need for comprehensive sex education. The sex ed debate goes beyond sex education. It's a religious debate where people are competing for the title of "Most Moral." It's about conservative versus liberal. It's about family values and who decides what that means. Abortion often gets thrown into the mix. It's about everything it shouldn't be about. Groups like the CWA use false messages that hurl us into a moral panic. Unmarried people are having sex. This is not a new revelation. It didn't begin with my generation and it most likely will not end with it either. Let's deal with the issue head on. Teach teens about their bodies and about protection so that by the time they are my age, 30 percent of them aren't misusing something as simple as a condom. More importantly, don't use my tax dollars anymore unless both sides of the story are told.