Rhode Island Bans Abstinence-Only Education

The Rhode Island Department Of Education has banned a specific abstinence-only program for political reasons. "Political" reasons meaning, the program encourages students to wait until marriage to have sex, which of course doesn't leave much room for gay and lesbian, bi-sexual, or transgender kids. The program includes an anonymous "pre-test" which asks the students questions about their views on sex (which could easily be eliminated, rather than the entire program). The biggest problems are that the program promotes a view of sexuality that is supported by several religions, and (horror of horrors) encourages young ladies to dress modestly. I know. If these abstinence-only people have their way, we girls will all be wearing dresses to our ankles and condoms will be banned from the earth.
What we're seeing here is the clash of two philosophies about the proper place for sexual expression, and the best way to handle the obvious social problems of teen pregnancy, the spread of STDs, single-parent homes, and the like.
On one side, you have the group of people who think that people should be free to have sex with anyone or anything they please. Privacy and all that. Their answer to the fact that the sexual revolution is threatening to destroy our society is to employ "safe sex" methods. Have sex with whomever, as long as you wear a condom. It also helps if women take the pill. Boom, that takes care of the huge problem of STDs and unintended children.
Unfortunately, condoms and contraceptives do not take care of every social problem caused by our free-sex-society.
* Disease: While condoms do prevent a wide variety of diseases and pregnancies if used successfully, they don't stop everything. Herpes and HPV (which causes genital warts) can both be transmitted even when a condom is worn because more of the skin can be affected than the area covered by the condom.
* Emotional/Relational issues. There's far more to worry about when having sex than just disease and pregnancy. Broken hearts, trust issues, divorce, and other difficulties in maintaining long-term, healthy, monogamous relationships can be linked to promiscuity.
While it sounds old-fashioned in today's age of sexual freedom, abstinence until marriage is truly the best way to avoid a host of social problems.
According to James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth:
"We've known for some time that abstinence-only is bad science, bad policy, and a blatant violation of medical ethics and basic human rights. And as more people find out what is being taught and what is being censored in these ineffective programs, more and more of these 'stay pure or we don't care about you' programs will be banned from public schools."
My goodness, this man is emotional! "Stay pure or we don't care about you?" I was under the impression that abstinence-only programs were more about saying, "Stay pure because we care about you."
To be fair, I don't know about this specific abstinence-only program. I don't know what it includes and what it leaves out. I'm all for abstinence-until marriage, but you can't just tell kids "Don't do it," and I tell kids, "Look. You will struggle. It'll be hard. But, in the long run, it's much easier, because you won't have children you're not ready to care for, you won't get a horrible number of diseases, you'll protect yourself from feeling used and stupid. You won't get used and dumped a dozen times until you hate every member of the opposite sex. But, I know that your have to do more than just tell kids, "Don't do it." That doesn't help them at all.
Abstinence programs should be comprehensive. By comprehensive, I don't mean, "Don't do it, but if you do, wear a condom." Students should be told about all the risks, physical, emotional, and relational, with good information and correct statistics. They should be told about what condoms can and cannot do. They should be taught more than just, "Don't do it," but should be given tools that will help them avoid situations where they'll be tempted. They should also be taught about what a healthy relationship looks like and learn tools on how to say "no" to unwanted sexual pressure.
There have always been and will always be kids who don't care, who just want to have sex - and who will do so. But, there are plenty of students who can exercise self-control, and who want to, and who should be taught what to do to help their futures and their marriages as strong and as healthy as possible. R.I. Department of Education to Commissioner Peter McWalters - a letter expressing problems with "Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education,"
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