The Bush Administration is censoring contraceptive education?!?!?!?!

In My Humble Opinion
1

If you have yet to hear about the federal grant program to which I’m referring, check this link for a historical overview. I first heard about it from NPR tonight, and there are currently schools in operation under the grant program.

Is there something wrong with the common-sense option of teaching both abstinence AND contraception? You don’t want your kids having sex, so you deprive them of information that could save their lives? It’s an indirect form of censorship, yes. However with the state of public education in this country, many schools will likely choose to comply with the grant for the extra cash. Am I the only one here who thinks that GIVING MORE MONEY TO THE TEACHERS is a better idea? Instead of trying to sneak your religion-tinged laws into the books through tempting schools with more of the money they desperately need? In my opinion the latter is dirty politics. Period.

I actually heard an Abstinence Only group leader (I wish I’d gotten her name) say, on national radio, “I disagree with those [statistics showing that AIDS awareness education had been the primary force in reducing the number of abortions performed legally] numbers . . . if someone says that abstinence doesn’t work (ed. note: WHO SAYS THAT?), I’ll show them the videos of my daughter’s wedding. She saved herself until marriage.” Hold the goddamned presses! Her daughter did so, therefore most girls in the country will, also! I was also unaware of the Abstinence Only Hivemind Experiment being performed by the federal government!

I cannot f*cking believe what is happening in this country. If the presidency continues to be held by administrations such as the current, the U.S. is going to revert to a religion-run government. Note I say “religion-run” and not “Christian-run”; it’s true that I am not a Christian, but government mandated by any religion is bad news. If it becomes much worse, I’ll be first in line for my one-way ticket to either Holland or Australia. It frightens me that much.

I’m quite honestly so disgusted I can’t find the proper words required to express the emotion. So I’ll leave the topic open. What do you folks think?

2

Some people honestly believe that sex education is the same as an endorsement of sexual ativity, and will encourage teens to have sex. I remeber the principal of my (religious) school “proving” this with an antecdotal story of another Christian school that had invited a speaker to talk about “Just Say No To Drugs” and instantly, the school started having a problem with students using drugs. (As if kids were unaware of their existance prior to the speech.)

In the past, birth control information was vigorously supressed, the logic being that people should not be able to escape the consequences of their “sins.” I think the current movement toward abstinence-only sex education might subliminally have the same notion. Perhaps they think that if kids don’t know any way to prevent disease and pregnancy they will abstain out of fear of the consequences. It’s an age old theory, but it didn’t work a hundred years ago, and it won’t work now.

As to the topic of religion in government, I heartily agree that it’s a sad, scary thing. The constant push for religion in our schools through the abstinence and creation movements angers and depresses me.

3

Well, if you’ve read any of my posts in the threads discussing teen sex, then you’ll know that I’m all for education about methods of birth control besides abstinance. (I’m a high school sophmore, FYI.) In Virginia Beach schools, they just teach us abstinance. I know many people that are sexually active but do not use birth control. I feel that it needs to be taught. This has been a problem in Virginia, and now they want to spread it throughout the country? Big mistake on their part.

4

Stop your hyperventilating and sit down before you fall down.

You act as though public school is the sole source of presumed accurate information regarding contraception. Wake up and look a bit closer at your computer monitor.

Teenagers today have access to more sources of information than at any time since birth control pills were made available in 1961. Computers are becoming available in school libraries, public libraries, and more and more homes. Public health departments are available in most larger towns and cities, and may in addition include Planned Parenthood clinics. And let’s not forget parents, that presumed authority figure in the home.

Because the federal government chooses to financially support specific programs over others doesn’t constitute some evil form of censorship. It indicates the government’s preference that certain behavior be encouraged and promoted. Sexual activity among teenagers can have lifelong detrimental repercussions. Discouraging early sexual activity is a good thing. That’s what grownups should do. No nightsticks, no school suspensions, no public spectacles. Just gentle encouragement for kids to postpone sexual activity.

5

Why can’t the parents tell their kids about contraception? Why must mty tax dollars go for this?

6

Abstinance is not a secular value. While making responsible decisions about sex is a generally good thing to teach, and abstanance is a way of being sexuallly responsible, abstainance until marriage is a purely religious value.

For example, almost no non-religious families would recommend that their children guard their virginity if the are 27 years old and unmarried. Additionally, lots of kids won’t ever get married. Plenty of them are gay. Plenty of them just won’t want to be married. The only reason to teach abstinance until marriage to these people is to push a religious hetrosexual worldview on to them.

7

Wrong even sven, abstinence IS a secular value. And remember, we’re talking junior and high schools kids here, not twenty-somethings.

Bear in mind that abstinence is a great means of preventing sexually transmitted disease, unwed pregnancy, and abortion. All of these are costs not only to the individual in question, but society at large. Welfare costs, medical expenses for treatment, missed opportunities for educational advancement. These have to be considered. Government should work to encourage positive social behavior and discourage negative social behavior. Not in any punitive manner, but in a persuasive manner. World of difference between the two.

8

NaSultainne:

The thing is, kids are going to sleep around, and they should be taught how to do it safely. Now if a parent has a religious objection to his/her child being taught “safe sex” in the classroom, then he/she should talk to the school administration about removing them.

k2dave:

Aren’t many of your tax dollars going to welfare for unwed (many times teenage) mothers and the children for whom they cannot provide? What’s the difference, so to speak? Ounce of prevention’s worth a pound of cure, right?

9
10

:smack: Stupid return key.

Bear in mind, however, that not all school districts have proper computers, Internet access, or homes where this is common - I’m thinking especially of the very rural or poor ones. I fail to see the problem with teaching about birth control but promoting abstinence as the very best form.

11

Some parents give their children less care than I give my houseplants. These are the kids who can wind up pregnant at fourteen and collecting welfare. Dollar for dollar, I’d rather pay less now for education than I will in supporting a child for 18 years. Think of it as an investment.

Some parents may be too embarassed to discuss sex with their teenagers, or their religious convictions may restrict what they tell their kids to, “Don’t!” The kids may not share their convictions, and thus are in need of accurate information.

12

Reinhold

Maybe you should read this part of the article again with my emphasis added.

You stated:

Not a bit. It sounds like they’re doing just that. But I have to agree with k2dave that parents have the obligation and responsibility to teach their children - not taxpayers.

13

Stop your hyperventilating and sit down before you fall down.

I wasn’t, and was already seated. But thank you for the kind suggestion. :rolleyes:

You act as though public school is the sole source of presumed accurate information regarding contraception. Wake up and look a bit closer at your computer monitor.

Not quite. I’m in the computing industry, so I’m perfectly aware of the impact technology has had on informatics and society as a whole. However if my tax dollars are being spent on “sexual education” for my kids, I want them to get the whole story. I also agree that I’m primarily responsible for educating my children on the topic of sex, but that’s irrelevant. The fact is that “sex ed” is taught in many schools, whether I or anybody else likes it or not . . . and if children get one story from mom/dad and another at school because the school chooses to ignore reality (and pre-marital sex is just that: a reality, and one that isn’t likely to go away), something is wrong.

Because the federal government chooses to financially support specific programs over others doesn’t constitute some evil form of censorship.

If the schools choosing to receive the grant are found to be teaching anything about contraception, the money is yanked. As I said in the OP . . . teaching abstinence is fine. Saying “if your public institute of education wants additional support from the federal government, you have to completely omit contraception from your lesson plan” is not.

It indicates the government’s preference that certain behavior be encouraged and promoted. Sexual activity among teenagers can have lifelong detrimental repercussions. Discouraging early sexual activity is a good thing.

Indeed. Personally, though, I think the average teenager has a thought process sufficient to conclude that abstinence isn’t the only choice; they will have sex if they really want to have sex. Showing them safer methods for just that seems not only intuitive, but necessary. Even though some kids (not all, as you previously implied) have many more sources of information on which to base a decision.

14

I guess you forgot that the additional federal tax slapped onto our monthly phone bills a few years ago was to pay for computers for schools. Remember Clinton’s “every child in school should have access to a computer” line? Gore was pretty big on that idea, too, as I recall.

15

I don’t see how it’s possible to solely support one lesson topic, but also support another. I didn’t mention in the OP that any school teaching contraception has their funds yanked . . . my fault.

16

Okay, Reinhold Messner, now you’re arguing a tighter point. What you’re arguing is, IMHO, a defeatist attitude. The “Aw, shucks, kids are gonna do it anyways” is hardly effective parenting. We have laws to prohibit harmful activities of all natures, from self-inflicted (suicide, illegal drug use) to violent (robbery, murder). Yet we still have an ongoing struggle to contain the self-destructive impulses of some members of our society. Do we then throw up our hands and give in, simply because the battle is never totally won? Of course not. We continue to search for those methods, be they coercive or persuasive, economic or punitive, which will discourage behavior harmful to self and society. In the forty years since the pill, have unwed pregnancies decreased? Have STD’s decreased? Has HIV/AIDS come under control? Yet in much of this same period of time, contraception methods have been routinely taught in high school classes. I submit to you that it hasn’t worked. Abstinence may not be palatable to the teenager suffering from raging hormones, but it has the advantage of maintaing health and promoting healthy, secure young adults. Why don’t we, as adults, recognize that kids can and do abstain from sex, and difficult though it may be, encourage that attiitude to spread? Wouldn’t our kids and our families be better off in so many ways?

17

Sure it’s possible to do both. I did that with my daughters when they were in their teens. I stressed abstinence with all the reasons why that was the best choice for them. But I also said that I realized, that in the end, they would decide when to become sexually active and it was a very important personal decision they would make. However, I strongly warned them that when they thought they were “mature enough” to engage in sex, then they also had to be responsible for their decision and use all the safeguards available, because I loved them very much and didn’t want them harmed by STDs. They were also told that abortion was not an option in our household and neither was welfare.

It worked out well for all of us, including a few of their friends who came to me for advice. They waited longer than I expected them too and when they did, they acted responsibly.

18

Gore should be - he invented the internet, after all.

StG

19

First-- why are you acting like this is one huge surprise? Bush has been talking about doing this since at least 1999.

Second-- I laugh at anyone’s plans to promote abstinence as a viable alternative to sex education because the rest of society is promoting sexual freedom. Britney, Christina, gangsta rap, commercials, books, video games, etc… That one lonely little class, or pamphlet handed out at assemblies, is vastly outnumbered.

Teens have always been interested in sex, and have always had sex, even in repressive societies. They’re always going to have sex. That’s what being a teenager is about!

Anyone who thinks otherwise is forgetting the whole spectrum of humanity they encountered during their teenage years.

20

I don’t get this. Don’t the kids just find abstinence-only education irrelevent, arachaic and simply naive?

I’m Australian and I completed high school in 2001. We probably did the whole sex-ed deal back in year 8 or 9 (97/98) and had anyone tried to avoid discussing contraception, it would have been ridiculous. We knew people had sex, we saw condoms and the pill and all over the place. To have avoided the issue would have been counter-productive, and we probably would have seen it as a bit of a joke. When someone tells you, “don’t have sex!” it’s a bit meaningless when you’re desperately trying to work out how to do it as soon as possible.

So what’s the story? Do you Virginia Beach kids find abstinence taught in sex-ed to be quaint and a little bit :rolleyes:, or are some/many/most of you just not aware of contraception the way we were?

If it’s the latter, I’d be truly worried about America.

Firstly, schools aren’t supposed to be ‘parenting,’ they’re supposed to be educating, and if someone doesn’t like that education because some guy wrote in a book that he was told by some other guy that some important guy who lives in the sky doesn’t like it, then they have no business stopping the government educating everyone else about it.

And if this is just a head-in-the-sand “if they don’t know, then they won’t do it” issue to you, the same thing applies. Schools are for educating. What useful purpose is there for not telling a student something that’s going to be helpful to them at some point in their life, whether it’s tomorrow or in ten years time?

Your main argument seems to consists of:

I’ve got news for you! Using a condom isn’t a crime. Oh, how about that! Who would have thought!?

Everything you mention there is a crime. Using contraception isn’t. Having sex isn’t either, depending on the age of the student. And in most places, they’ll be of legal age for the last two years of their high school schooling. So why not get them prepared?

Sure, that doesn’t mean we should be encouraging it. But it’s better to prepare them so that if they make a small mistake, they don’t necessaily have to make an even bigger mistake that has even bigger consequences.

In fact, by what possible stretch of the imagination could you conclude that educating students of contraception is going to encourage them to have sex?