2-19-05 Article: "Can our Students Abstain from Risk?"

I always wonder if the writers of articles about sex education ever look at actual curriculums. I have looked at a variety of curriculums and believe me 'lack too many details' easily applies to comprehensive programs.

Lets face it, the designers of all these curriculums include what they think is important for kids to know based on their own very basic beliefs.

Condom-based curriculums assume that adolescents will be sexually active because it is a natural drive. Therefore, teens need to be taught to engage in sex by reducing the very real risks through using condoms. Lessons can include trips to stores to explore the variety of condoms available and practice in putting on condoms correctly on bananas or other penile substitutes. Avoiding pregnancy is also a major tenet so varieties of contraceptives are covered. Another major factor is removing the discomfort of having serious conversations with partners. Role playing is important for building refusal skills, determining a partner's sexual motives, discussing sexual histories and testing/treatment of STD, and incorporating "safe sex" into their sexual activity. What is too controversial to handle in classrooms can be covered by directing them to websites. It is all very here and now. It is directed at the ineviability of having sex.

Abstinence curriculums assume teens can use their brains to subdue their sex drive. It concentrates on exploring rational reasons for a teen to wait to have sex until married. Curriculums stress taking a life view by setting goals: pursuing an education, career, marriage and family. It challenges students to look at how STD, a history of multiple partners, and unwed pregnancy can destroy those goals. Then it takes them through the character traits they can develop that will help them meet goals. It stresses that sexual abstinence is a lifestyle that ultimately works in a person's favor. The traits one uses to refrain from sex as a teen will be the ones that are used to be a good student, a trusted employee, a faithful spouse, a devoted parent and an empathetic adult. This is not "Just say NO". It is directed at what is ultimately best for people and society.

Condom/contraceptive education has been well marketed to appeal to parental desire to keep their kids SAFE. Thus, we get headlines like "Can our kids abstain from risk?" Abstinence education gets lamblasted for facts, statistics, and data despite the fact those things ultimately are not what influences kids the most. How many articles do we see that challenge abstinence curriculums for what they really do teach? None? Abstinence does not teach that if you aren't abstinent you are bad. It teaches that choices you make now can affect your future, putting choices in a lifelong framework.

Lorraine Latham of Planned Parenthood bemoans her organization's lack of access to students in some communities implying it is only because of conflicting funding. She doesn't mention that Planned Parenthood has its own grants/funding to put their curriculums and teachers in schools as is the case with MPS. In some places, parents and schools have looked at all curricular options and have decided that abstinence curriculums have more to offer.

As to research on outcomes: If condom education, the predominant curriculums in our schools, worked so well STD and teen pregnancy rates should have plummeted by now. There is absolutely no data to prove that any sexually active teenager who uses condoms and contraceptives escapes all STD and pregnancy over the course of their unwed teen and adult years. Remember some STDs take time to develop and the person has to have regular testing to prove they are not infected. However, no proof is needed for the abstinent teen who engages in no genital contact; it is virtually impossible to contract a disease or get pregnant.

The charge that ONE curriculum cites that "HIV can be contracted through sweat and tears" is a hopefully erroneous interpretation probably based on the new saliva test for HIV. Everyone should be getting an honest answer for a legitimate question--if you can test for HIV from saliva, how is it not passed through saliva?

Bottom line: Any lesson needs consistent repetition for it to be learned and assimilated. High School freshmen outscore seniors on surveys because they have fresh knowledge due to ninth grade health classes. But that knowledge tends to dissipate over the years, no matter what the message, unless it is reinforced and assimilated when it is most needed. Denied that opportunity, keeping teens abstinent for at least 18 months longer is an incredible plus for girls. As their reproductive systems mature, diseases can become less invasive and young women become more knowledgeable and responsible for their own health. Unfortunately, the latter is because of awareness of their friends' experiences rather than medical or educational intervention. If abstinence education achieves even this level of postponement, girls benefit. Curricular goals might have failed but girls are still better off.