I was making my rounds through the typical news sites this morning and come across an article on CNN quoting a Jack Cafferty (a CNN reporter) story reporting the results of a recently released "case study" suggesting an decrease in teen sex as a result of the $170 million spent annually in Abstinence education through the public school system. I reviewed the results of this case study and found that the reported 33.5% of Abstinence educated students and 48.5% of the control group who were projected to participate in sexual intercourse is an admitted estimation. The actual reported occurrence of sexual activity was 20.6% for the Abstinence only group and 29% for the control group with no published estimation for the margin of error for this study. Now for those of you reading this that are not aware of my standing on "case study" results please read the following paragraph, if you are familiar with my stance skip the next paragraph.
Any time you see a "case study" or "survey" referenced in an article or speech or memo supporting the authors theme or opinion you are being lied to. Any reference to "statistical data" means you are being lied to. Any time anyone interprets data for you, you are being lied too. Not to say the data is wrong in any particular way but like most things quoted in popular media today it is quite often taken out of context certain aspects are flat ignored or the results are interpreted in a fashion that suits the authors needs.
To get to the point I wish to make here, we are going to have to dismiss some enormous oddities in the underlying truths about the world. The first blind eye will be turned to the terribly unstable footing these reputable public figures, such as the elected officials, party heads, media spokesmen and a certain number of the religious leaders take on the hypocritical aspect of sex out of wedlock, an ideology seldom practiced by many whom support it. Secondly we will have to dismiss the reality that the promotion of sexuality has become one of the most powerful marketing tools for every consumer product available in the world today from bubble gum to used cars, so any 5 minute discussion about the benefits of Abstinence would be quickly drown out by the constant inflow of sexually charged propaganda.
Now with all that out of the way lets take a deeper look at the real issue. What kind of sex education should we be teaching in public schools? On the one side we have Abstinence and on the other safe sex practices. In lue of listing out all the pros and cons of the two schools of thought I'm going to say this plainly. Abstinence is a tool for those either too ignorant to see the reality of the world today or too scared to talk candidly about sex and safe sex practices will be beneficial to those who are mature enough to grasp and understand the consequences of sexual activity.
I want to take a second to address a small portion of the opinionated community that wonders why any form of sex education is needed in our schools at all. If you want proof of the need for sexual education get on your computer and look for any taped broadcast of the Dr. Drew show, after listening for 20 minutes of that show just think to yourself, those people have graduated from our fine public school system and will soon be passing on their knowledge (or lack there of) to the next generation. Do you really want the only information that generation gets about sex to come from their parents? Children in school are going to get some kind of sex education. Would you rather is be from their equally uninformed peers? With that in mind, I don't think anyone could argue intelligently against the need for sex education in public schools.
For what ever political agenda the opposing proponents have in selecting their stance on this subject a seemingly unbridgeable rift has been created between the two concepts. Once you weed all the political and religious arguments out of the subject a clear and simple answer to this question becomes apparent. Abstinence needs to be promoted in the early stages of sex education, without the maturity both mentally and emotionally to understand the consequences of sexual activity the young mind can not grasp the ramifications of unsafe sexual behavior. When Abstinence fails, and it will fail, the student needs be aware of the hazards of sexual activity and be informed on how to best protect themselves from these hazards. Promote Abstinence and teach safety.
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