“Planned Parenthood” Advocates Permissive Sex

The sex education promoted by Planned Parenthood in public schools will not stop teen-age pregnancies.

Christy and john, both 16, met at a church retreat and had been dating steadily for four months. They cared a lot about each other and enjoyed sharing their hopes and feelings. Their physical reactions progressed with their feelings and Christy, still a virgin, was beginning to feel uncertain about her response to John’s advances. At school, she and John heard about other couples having sex. Christy’s parents often talked about the importance of saving sex for marriage, and constantly reminded her to be a “good girl.”

Christy’s health class was just beginning a unit on family life/sex education, and she hoped some of her questions about sex and dating would be answered. The instructor for the unit, Ms. James, was a stylish, young, single woman well liked by the students. She asked the class for examples of sex mentioned in such mass media as records, films, and TV shows. The class responded enthusiastically. The teacher pointed out that these media constantly send sexual messages, yet give very little information about sex. The film that day, About Sex, would add to their sex information, she said.

The movie opened with a rock group singing, “Let’s get together—Sex. That’s what it’s all about—Sex.” A series of flashing pictures included a nude go-go dancer. Christy couldn’t believe what she thought she had seen, and she was very attentive. She was particularly interested in what was said about premarital intercourse: “When a man and women decide to have sex they should also decide if they want a baby.” A Planned Parenthood clinic was shown as a helpful source of information and assistance.

As the film ended, Christy was puzzled. No one had mentioned marriage, masturbation was encouraged, homosexuality was presented as an acceptable option, and having an abortion sounded like a positive experience.About Sex (film). Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 810 Seventh Ave., N.Y. 10019. This is a movie for junior and senior high students. “The movie has been shown to teenagers by some affiliates of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Faye Wattleton, president of the federation, acknowledged …” (Chicago Tribune, April 1, 1981). Reference to About Sex is found in at least the following curricula developed and sold by ppfa affiliates: Christy felt puzzled—had she missed something? The principles her parents had taught about the importance of marriage and the gift of children were never mentioned.

When Ms. James asked for questions, Christy responded, “I think you should wait to have sex until after you get married.” There were several snickers in the class. Ms. James answered, “That is one choice a person can make. You don’t want to have sex before ‘you are ready for it’.Sol Gordon, Ten Heavy Facts about Sex, Ed-U Press (1975), back page. This comic book is referred to in these two curricula: Project Then Concern, p. 63 (see footnote 1); and The Inside Story, Planned Parenthood Association/Chicago Area (1974); see inside back cover following p. 36, under “Suggested Readings.”” Christy felt uneasy. What did Ms. James mean by “ready”? The teacher continued, saying that the essential thing was to “be responsible. Of course, abstinence is a birth control option.”Family Life Education: Curriculum Guide, Family Life Ed. Program Development Project (1980), p. 138 (designed by Planned Parenthood of Santa Cruz County, Calif.).

As the weeks passed, Ms. James stressed the importance of being responsible A (using birth control to prevent pregnancy), and not judging other people’s sexual choices.Douglas Kirby, Judith Alter, and Peter Scales, An Analysis of U.S. Sex Education Programs and Evaluation Methods, vol. 1, p. 1; Report No. CDC-2120-79-DK-FR. This book says of itself, “Selects and summarizes excellent school and non-school programs.…” Planned Parenthood programs receive attention on six pages of this report. A goal listed on page 1 reads: “to develop more tolerant attitudes toward the sexual behavior of others.” Her job, she said, was not to teach values but to help the students clarify their own values. She asked the students to take a public position on various questions relating to sexual behavior. Christy didn’t mind some of the topics, but the following questions made her uncomfortable:

1. Would you rather be pregnant and carry at 15 or have an abortion?

2. Would you rather pick your marriage partner at 16 or never marry?

3. Would you rather spend your life in total abstinence or have sex only with a (male or female) prostitute?

4. Would you rather spend your life in total abstinence or with the same sex partner?Joan Helmich and Jan Loreen, Sexuality Education and Training: Theory, Techniques and Resources, Planned Parenthood of Seattle King County, Seattle, Wash., (1978) p. 48.

Christy didn’t like any of the options—she knew there were other alternatives—but she took a position nonetheless.

However, on the subject of homosexuality, Christy faced a dilemma. Ms. James stressed being nonjudgmental, saying we are living in a pluralistic society. Christy didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she thought she agreed with those concepts. The students were asked to move to a certain part of the classroom to take a position physically on a continuum line that marked the extremes of the following statements:

Homosexuality is a sin. Homosexuals should be allowed to get married.

Homosexuals should be allowed to adopt children.Steven Bignell, Sex Education, Teacher’s Guide and Resource Manual, Planned Parenthood of Santa Cruz County, Calif., p. 97.

Christy knew little about homosexuality. She knew only that her parents thought it a sin. But no one was at that end of the room. She remembered that the previous day Ms. James said, “We cannot be judgmental.” Besides, what could she say to defend the position her family had taken?

Some days the class was really funny, like the time students sat in small groups and wrote down all the slang names they had heard for penis, vagina, homosexual, and intercourse.Eleanor S. Morrison and Mila Underhill Price, Values in Sexuality, A New Approach to Sex Education, A. and W. Visual Library, N.Y. (1974), p. 34 (sold and recommended by Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington). This book is referred to in the following curricula: Helmich, p. 121 (see footnote 5); Bignell, p. 221 (see footnote 6); A Decision …, p. 166 (see footnote 34); see also Stephanie Braaten Hanson and Nadeane Nass, Sexuality Education for Parents—A Training Manual for Facilitators, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, Dodge-Jefferson Chapter (1979), p. 106. Everyone had to work hard to keep from laughing. Christy learned a lot that day.

Dating John was the high point of Christy’s high school life. She had never felt as she felt now, all warm and aglow. One Saturday night John took her out to dinner to celebrate her birthday, and he gave her his class ring. Returning home, Christy found a note saying her folks would return at 1 A.M. It was then 11 P.M., so Christy invited John to watch TV and have some popcorn. As the couple on the screen began to kiss, so did John and Christy. Before long, John was telling Christy how much he loved her and that he felt like making love to her.

Christy felt the same way. She knew she loved John, but all she could think of was, “Am I ready?” and, “Is it right?” John was upset when Christy told him that. “Don’t you love me?” he asked.

“Of course I do,” she replied. “I’m just not sure if we should make love. I’ve always been taught to wait to have sex until I got married.” Christy never thought it would be this difficult.

“Haven’t you heard what Ms. James has been saying? ‘If you’re ready and responsible there’s nothing wrong with having sex!’ ” John interjected.

“I’m still not sure, John. You know I love you; please give me time to work it out.”

The next week Christy decided to look in Our Bodies Ourselves, the source book Ms. James had recommended so highly, to see if she could find anything about virginity and marriage since those topics were rarely mentioned in class. She found that losing one’s virginity was “viewed as a move from childhood to adulthood” and a step toward “independence” and “autonomy.”The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Our Bodies Ourselves, Simon and Schuster (1976), p. 43. This book is referred to in at least the following government and Planned Parenthood curricula: Project Teen Concern, p. 64 (see footnote 1); Sex Education Teachers’ Guide …, p. 136 (see footnote 1); The Inside Story, inside back cover following p. 36 under “Suggested Reading” (see footnote 2); Jane Doods, Human Sexuality …; look under section tabs (loose-leaf notebook) labeled “Relationship,” p. 9, and “Anatomy,” p. 9 (see footnote 1); Peer Education …, p. 99 (see footnote 1); A Decision Making Approach …, p. 167 (see footnote 34). According to our culture, the book said, marriage should be an “intimate” and “lasting relationship,” but the authors wanted to correct that “misleading and confining message.” They intended to “explore intimate relationships in addition to marriage.”Our Bodies Ourselves, p. 71. That same week, at Ms. James’s suggestion, some of Christy’s classmates visited a Planned Parenthood clinic. They picked up several pamphlets and showed them to the other girls. Christy read them, hoping to find something about marriage and virginity to help dispel her uncertainty. She read So You Don’t Want to Be a Sex Object. It said, “Accept sex for what it is, for whatever pleasure it gives you.”Sheri Tepper, So You Don’t Want to Be a Sex Object, Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, Denver (1977), p. 7. Elsewhere the pamphlet described the “old mythology” of saving sex for marriage. If you have decided to be that type of “old-fashioned girl” who believed in “manipulation and pseudo-submission” with a “geisha mentality,” that was fine, but “don’t hassle girls who want something else.”Tepper, p. 12.

Still thinking of marriage, Christy looked at You’ve Changed the Combination. It asked boys if they wanted a “warm body.” If so, “Buy one.” In the next paragraph it said, “Do you want to marry a virgin? Buy one.… Marriage is the price you’ll pay, and you’ll get the virgin. Very temporarily.”Sheri Tepper, You’ve Changed the Combination, Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, Denver (1977), p. 18.

Christy was upset. Was marriage selling your virginity? She wanted to cry. She had thought of marriage and sex as a beautiful gift from God. That view had kept her from making love to John on Saturday night. Did she believe in a myth? Was she trying to remain dependent on her parents? Was she planning to sell her virginity? Where had these ideas come from?

Margaret Sanger’S Legacy

Many parents have heard from their own children about some of the material referred to in Christy’s story. As the footnotes in this article show, all of the examples given were developed or at least promoted by various Planned Parenthood affiliates and their staff.

Some parents are shocked. Others see themselves as open-minded, and on principle would never support censuring the school. The first group refers to the content of the material and talks of morality. The second group stresses the importance of “knowledge” and freedom of speech. At any rate, few parents or educators have taken the time to examine the goals and objectives of the influential organization that is Planned Parenthood and the educational materials designed to achieve them. We intend to examine the organization’s larger character, focusing on its influence on teen-agers, in order to decide what course of action seems appropriate.

What is the movement like? Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is an alliance composed of “188 affiliates and their more than 70 clinics in 42 states and the District of Columbia.”Strengthening America Through Choice, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., Annual Report (1980), p. 21. Planned Parenthood World Population is part of this alliance, and is made up of national headquarters and regional offices, plus the offices in Washington, D.C. Although the affiliates often portray themselves as individual entities, PPFA states that “all segments of the federation work together,”Same as above, p. 19. with financial support flowing in both directions. Ideologically, PPFA and the affiliates speak with one voice. Included in this voice is the Alan Guttmacher Institute—the organization’s research arm.

The influence of PPFA extends beyond its offices and clinics into the courts, legislatures, and public schools throughout the country. It has become one of the major resources for sex education throughout the United States.

This impressive organization began with the work of Margaret Sanger. In 1914, many women were dying in childbirth. Doctors were forbidden by law to give birth control devices or information to women, but men could be given condoms to “prevent disease.”David Kennedy, Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, Yale Univ. Press, New Haven and London (1970), p. 87. Margaret Sanger is best known for addressing this. Along with rectifying this inequality, however, she proposed a new moral standard.

Sanger began her involvement as a socialist focusing on the ideas of Swedish feminist Ellen Key, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche,Kennedy, p. 13. and anarchist Emma Goldman.Madeline Gray, Margaret Sanger: Biography of the Champion of Birth Control, Richard Marek Pub., N.Y. (1979), p. 48. Sanger was indicted under the Comstock Law for her pamphlet The Woman Rebel (whose slogan was: “No Gods! No Masters!”). Unprepared to appear in court, she fled to England. There she worked with Havelock Ellis, advocate of unlimited sexual freedom,Emily Taft Douglas, Margaret Sanger: Pioneer of the Future, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, N.Y. (1970), p. 78. and a neo-Malthusian group that introduced her to concepts of eugenics and population control. Sanger synthesized these ideas, making “emotions … the cornerstone of the new morality,”Kennedy, p. 14. and viewing sexual love as holy. She believed that “through sex, mankind may attain the great spiritual illumination”Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, Brentano’s, N.Y. (1922), p. 271. leading to an earthly paradise. She envisioned a “new standard … based upon knowledge and freedom” while believing that the old was “founded upon ignorance and submission”Margaret Sanger, The New Motherhood, Elmford, N.Y. (Maxwell Reprint, 1969), p. 189 (original copyright, 1922). (for instance, to “the teachings of the churches concerning chastity and sexual purity”).Sanger, Pivot, p. 246.

Sanger also said, in The New Motherhood: “When the womb becomes fruitful through the desire of an aspiring love, another Newton will come forth to unlock further the secrets of the earth and the stars. There will come a Plato who will be understood, a Socrates who will drink no hemlock, and a Jesus who will not die upon the cross. These and the race that is to be await upon a motherhood that is to be sacred because it is free” (p. 243).

With the use of birth control, Sanger believed the “new morality” could solve the social problems of the day by facilitating the “weeding out of the unfit.”Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race, Elmford, N.Y. (1969) p. 229. She believed the unfit were bred by the lower classes, and included “illiterates, unemployable, paupers, criminals, prostitutes and dope fiends.”Gray, p. 289. Although Sanger began working among the poor, by 1928 her focus had changed to the wealthy and middle class, stressing not only their own limitation but the limitation of the poor. Her reason for wanting to limit the poor through birth control was not so much concern for the poor as it was decreasing the funds allocated to the poor: “Funds that should be used to raise the standard of our civilization are diverted to the maintenance of those who should never have been born.”Sanger, Pivot, p. 279.

Margaret Sanger identified the problem of women dying in childbirth. However, in her solution to that problem (contraception) she saw a means for restructuring society’s moral standard. She wanted to break “down the taboos … that have surrounded sexual behavior in the so-called Christian communities”Sanger, Pivot, p. 246.—in other words, the Judeo-Christian ethic that assigns dignity to all human beings and honors mutual commitment in marriage. Sanger’s new morality made possible by birth control was based on emotion and sexual arousal combined with an elitist perspective of knowing who should and “should never have been born.”Sanger, Pivot, p. 279.

“Reproductive Freedom”

The organization she founded merged with several other birth control groups, and became known in 1942 as Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Are Margaret Sanger’s new morality and elitism still present in the organization she mothered for over 20 years?

PPFA issued A Five Year Plan: 1976–1980, which stated their goal as “universal reproductive freedom.”A Five Year Plan: 1976–1980, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (1975), p. 4. Among the objectives were “abolishing the arbitrary and outmoded restrictions,” “improvement of sexual literacy,” and “extending family planning services.”Same as above, p. 4.PPFA’S 1979 annual report, Pro-Family, Pro-Child, Pro-Choice, said that “reproductive freedom is a matter of individual morality. And the most moral position is that which offers moral choice to others.”Pro-Child, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice, Planned Parenthood of America, Annual Report (1979), p. 8.

But suppose we say that “moral choice” is strictly individual, and that there is no basis by which to measure one’s actions, with no accountability to another person, to family, or to society, let alone to God. Are we not then left with a standard that says all sexual choices are equally desirable? Sex within marriage is not preferable to sex outside of marriage or homosexuality or any other form of sexual activity. It simply becomes a matter of individual choice.

Some parents who have attended a Planned Parenthood parents’ workshop find it hard to believe that PP specifically supports a viewpoint as destructive as suggested at the beginning of this article. This is because PP’s strategy in the workshops is to listen, not to present its viewpoint. But PPhas a viewpoint, a standard, and in other circumstances it aggressively presents that.

One means of accomplishing reproductive freedom is through improving “sexual literacy,” which means providing young people with non-judgmental “knowledge” of all types of sexual behavior, including many forms traditionally called perverse. As stated in Ten Heavy Facts about Sex, “We say, no one has the right to condemn a person on the basis of that person’s manner of sexual expression.”See footnote 2. By redefinition, perversion has been eliminated.

Planned Parenthood is invited into classrooms throughout the nation by means of curricula, pamphlets, guest speakers, films, and teacher training programs. Hoping to influence parents, PP has also designed parents’ workshops and seminars. Acting as the facilitator and listener, PP encourages parents to express their ideas. The parents feel they have been heard and seldom realize that PP’S goal—reproductive freedom—has been designed into the structure of the workshop.

Under the guise of knowledge, PP selects only those facts that lead students to embrace “reproductive freedom.” By omitting positive support for marriage, commitment, intimacy, and relatedness to social patterns, values, or symbols, it is proceeding to establish Sanger’s “new morality” based on “knowledge.” Through omission, it has been “abolishing the arbitrary and outmoded restrictions” of our culture, which today’s PP as well as Margaret Sanger perceived to be the Judeo-Christian ethic.

Denial Of Pluralism

Paradoxically, PP pretends to represent a pluralistic society when claiming it cannot advocate a particular standard such as the Judeo-Christian ethic. Yet pluralism in America generally refers to the different ethnic, racial, and religious groups represented by the American populace. The formal position of the great majority of these groups views marriage and having children as more desirable than other choices involving sexuality. No such major group considers sex in marriage equal either to sex outside marriage or to homosexual lifestyle. Yet PP says it cannot support this widely held standard of sex in marriage because of American pluralism.

PP’s statement holds true only if we think of pluralism in terms of sexual choices (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, married sex, nonmarried sex, etc.). But if we take the word “pluralism” in its usual sense, we see how sectarian is PP’s standard that all sexual choices are equally desirable. No major religious, racial, or ethnic group in our society has supported this PP standard. If it succeeds in abolishing the Judeo-Christian values as they relate to sex, it will abolish the common structure on which pluralistic America has functioned since its inception. Further, by emphasizing “choice” and deemphasizing the place of ethical standards in guiding choice, PP has failed to give attention to a major viewpoint in our society. And it has supported its views with tax money from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now Health and Human Services) and other government groups.

Sex In High School

Pregnancy among teen-agers is a problem. One million teens were pregnant in 1974, and 1,142,000 in 1978.Teenage Pregnancy: The Problem That Hasn’t Gone Away, Alan Guttmacher Institute (1981), pp. 4, 17. Since 1966, the federal government has pumped millions of dollars into programs of Planned Parenthood and those with a similar philosophy until, in 1980, $319 million dollars was allocated for family planning services (including educational programs).Personal letter from Congressman John Erlenborn, November 30, 1981. Yet the problem is worse than ever. Why? We shall examine how PP’s goals and outlook affect its approach to high school teens.

PP’s programs are based on a series of false assumptions. First, adolescent intercourse is viewed by PP and to some extent by the bureaucracy of the federal government as “an important but individual aspect of each adolescent’s growth and development.”A Decision-Making Approach to Sex Education: A Curriculum Guide and Implementation Manual for Model Program with Adolescents and Parents, Department of Health and Human Services Pub. No. (HSA) 80-5608 (1979), p. 39. Credit for this curriculum is assigned by this book to staff and consultants from several Planned Parenthood offices in California. If having intercourse is only a part of human development, the multiple meanings assigned by our society to sex are eliminated (for instance, love and commitment), and adolescent intercourse is to be expected. Teens are asked if they are ready for sex.Teensex? It’s Okay to Say No Way, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, N.Y. (1979), p. 4. It is from this perspective that PP hopes to teach teens to be “responsible.”

But PP believes that being “responsible” means not being accountable or answerable to another person, one’s family, or society for one’s actions, PP’s definition of “responsible” concerns the use of methods of birth control to prevent pregnancy. From PP’s point of view, failure here is the cause of pregnancy among teens; therefore, teach teens to use these methods and the problem of teen-age pregnancy will be solved. Yet, “even though more teen-agers are using contraceptives … pregnancy rates have continued to climb.”Melvin Zelnick and John Kantner, “Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use and Pregnancy Among Metropolitan Area Teenagers: 1971–1979,” Family Planning Perspectives, Sept/Oct. 1980, p. 237. Planned Parenthood chooses to downplay the fact that pregnancy is caused by intercourse at any fertile age. Zelnik and Kantner, two researchers whose work is published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, confirm the causal relationship when referring to the increase in premarital pregnancy: “Most of this increase is attributable to the rise in the proportion of young women who had had premarital sexual experience.”Zelnik and Kantner, p. 233. Yet very little positive support and encouragement are given to the value of waiting for sex until the committed relationship of marriage. Abstinence is defined by PP as a form of birth control, and so it loses all moral value.

Second, even if we assume PP’s basic premise (that adolescent intercourse is only a natural part of human development), PP’s programs will continue to fail to eliminate teen-age pregnancy because PP ignores the adolescent’s stage of understanding of cause and effect in relation to himself. Most adolescents are self-centered and “have their personal fable,” thinking themselves “immune to danger.”Catherine S. Chilman, Adolescent Sexuality in a Changing American Society: Social and Psychological Perspectives, National Institutes of Health Pub. No. 80-1426 (reprinted 1980), p. 165. This “fable” limits their ability to project future consequences for current actions: “It just couldn’t happen to me. I’ve read about birth control.… I knew it was easy to get pregnant, but not for me.”Constance Lindemann, Birth Control and Unmarried Young Women, Springer Pub. Co., N.Y. (1974), p. 20.

Most teens know about birth control, but they assign meanings to sex that PP chooses to omit. Perceiving sex only as a part of growth and development ignores its relationship to the emotional and spiritual aspects of the person, whether teen-ager or adult. Most teens and adults still link sex primarily with concepts of love, commitment, or marriage, not with contraception. Some teens hope to achieve love and intimacy, “the sharing of one’s being with another,”Rollo May, “The Promiscuity Trap,” Reader’s Digest, Jan. 1982, p. 88. and their feeling of the moment leads to sexual intercourse. Often they do not make plans for contraception, even though they know about it. To other teens, “sex is identified with marriage, not with development, and pregnancy is identified with marriage, not sex.”Lindemann, p. 99.

Yet there is another group of sexually active teen-aged girls that wants to get pregnant (36 percent of those giving birth).Adolescent Prenatal Health: A Guidebook for Services, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (1979), p. 7. Some hope it will lead to marriage, while others say, “I have to have a baby to prove my femininity and to show I have a boyfriend.”Patricia McCormack, “Taking the Pulse of Women’s Health Issues for 1981,” Chicago Tribune, Jan. 4, 1981, sec. 12, p. 8. Still another group hopes a baby will provide love, and release from loneliness.

These teens are attempting to prevent “a feeling of utter moral alone-ness” and, like adults, seeking to be related “to social patterns, values and symbols,” which comprise what Maxine Schnall labels “connectedness.”Maxine Schnall, Limits: A Search for New Values, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., N.Y. (1981), p. 4. By ignoring the role of sexuality in a committed marriage relationship, PP fails to address what young people long to know the most, leaving teens in a state of moral confusion.

Planned Parenthood has not only failed to stem the tide of teen-age pregnancy, it has diverted attention from the real problem of which teenage pregnancy is only a symptom. The tragedy is that trusting youths are seeking love, commitment, intimacy, and connectedness, and are dreaming of a lasting marriage. But they are finding none of these.

Some of them are involved in a pregnancy. The comment heard most often by counselors of pregnant teens—“but he told me that he loved me”—reveals some of the expectations and shattered trust of our young. It is trust that wasn’t trustworthy, intimacy that wasn’t intimate, and commitment that wasn’t committed that are shaping our tomorrow far beyond the 1,142,000 teen-age pregnancies. Will the young men and women involved in these experiences be willing to trust, to be intimate, to be committed in the future? Can a healthy, free society prosper without genuine trust, intimacy, and commitment?

To Christians, the answer is evident. God’s standards cannot be violated without adverse results. They are given for our benefit by a loving and just Father. He wants us to achieve our highest human fulfillment.

Planned Parenthood’s reproductive freedom, promoted with government money in public schools, will not solve the problem of pregnancy among teenagers. Even worse, it will leave our young with only physical sensation in a dehumanized society, alone and caring only about themselves.

What Can We Do?

Eliminating the support of state and federal funds for Planned Parenthood and like-minded organizations seems to be one obvious answer. This funding is substantial. For example, the Planned Parenthood Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., two years ago launched a 24-month project it called “a three-pronged attack on unwanted fertility” at a budgeted cost of just under $760,000. Ninety percent of the cost of the project—which included reaching high school and junior high students through a Peer Education Program utilizing rap sessions and improvisational theater, and conducting in-school contraceptive clinics where foam and condoms were distributed—was underwritten by the federal government.

Removing these funds will be possible only if Christians learn to use a neutral language that allows people to understand the Christian position and doesn’t offend those of other faiths who hold the same principles. But successfully eliminating PP’s influence will not solve the problems relating to teenagers’ sexual activity.

We must develop programs that use convincing reasoning when supporting values that members of our pluralistic society hold in common. C. S. Lewis suggests that among these teachings should be “the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are.”C. S. Lewis, Abolition of Man, Macmillan (1955), p. 29. We must work to articulate values common to all major religious and ethnic groups so our young people can recognize that even in a pluralistic society, basic moral standards are appropriate. Christian youth also must be taught to differentiate antibiblical views from the Christian basis for marriage: mutual service of giving in love to each other and to Christ.

Parents, too, need to do a better job in communicating values and preparing their children to cope with classroom books and films that promote alternative value systems. This requires that parents know what their children are being taught in school. Most surveys, though often done from PP’s perspective, suggest that parents are not doing an effective job of teaching their children about sex. The problem for the parent is not simply communicating basic physical facts, but how to communicate along with those facts the values of commitment, trust, and love as they relate to sex—and to do it without being preachy. Parents need help in defending the Judeo-Christian standards, and the church should assist them.

The church can take some lessons from Planned Parenthood on how to communicate values without being preachy. It can help young people make wise decisions by developing methods for clarifying values. A local church could face its teens with the realistic options, including sexual exclusiveness in marriage, but also dealing with other popular alternatives contrary to biblical teaching. Other topics worth considering include: (1) the roles of sex in culture (recognizing we live in a complex mobile society, not a closed and primitive one); (2) the role of sex in marriage as it relates to trust and intimacy, jealousy, kinship structure, connectedness, and God.

A few well-chosen facts from psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and professionals in other secular fields can help young people understand that God was not being arbitrary or punitive when he set the basic guidelines for sexual relationships. God’s guidelines were meant to give us freedom to be the people he intended. He created us, so he knows how we were meant to live most fully.

In the public sector, we can ask that programs reflect what people want. Daniel Yankelovich has noted that in surveys in 1970 and 1980, 96 percent of all Americans “declared themselves dedicated to the ideal of two people sharing a life and home together.”Daniel Yankelovich, “New Rules in American Life: Searching for Self-Fulfillment in a World Turned Upside Down,” Psychology Today, April 1981, p. 85. Teens want to know, “What does it mean to love someone else and to be loved?”A Decision-Making Approach …, p. 1 (see footnote 34 above). These concerns of the American people appear to point toward marriage. Why not make them the goal in the public curriculum, with objectives designed to help people achieve greater success in reaching that goal?

Some might be concerned that such a program would seem to go beyond teaching about sex. Our society has become so consumed by myths overselling sexual pleasure and gratification that it has ignored the fact that much joy as well as heartache associated with sex has little to do with the sex act itself. The beauty of oneness grows from mutual commitment, mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual love—emotionally, spiritually, and physically bonded by sex in marriage. Devastating heartache results when the bond is violated and commitment, respect, trust, and love are lacking. Teenage pregnancy is one testimony to the shattered hearts of our young. Increased drug use and suicide may be others.

The facts about sex need to be taught in the context of values. If we divorce sex from values, Rollo May cautions, we “block the development of one’s freedom, but also make the cultural problem of sex insoluble. Moral concern in sex hinges on the acceptance of one’s responsibility for the other as well as for oneself.”Rollo May, Freedom and Destiny, W. W. Norton, N.Y. (1981), p. 157.

Teens have choices to make about their sexual activities. We cannot make those decisions for them. However, should we not at least try to light the path to help them avoid stumbling unnecessarily? We have sat idly by, letting Planned Parenthood, often financed by our tax money, advocate reproductive freedom to young people. It is not consistent with the values of the Judeo-Christian ethic and the Western cultural tradition generally accepted by our pluralistic society.

We must recognize the consequences of this philosophy. It will not solve the problem of pregnancy among teenagers, and even worse, it will continue to lay a heavy burden on our young people, leading them toward disillusionment and self-centered isolation. We Christians have better alternatives to offer, and it is time to articulate them clearly. There is still time, and we have a choice, but we must act before it is too late. Living in a pluralistic society is no reason for inaction. Doing nothing is itself a choice.

Is there a viable alternative to Planned Parenthood’s sex education curriculum?

The Concordia sex education series published this summer (Concordia Publishing House, 3558 S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, Mo. 63118) correctly teaches sex in a context of Judeo-Christian values. Six books, with correlated teaching filmstrips and cassettes, are graded in both vocabulary and the amount of information provided. The six: Each One Specially (ages 3 to 5), I Wonder Why (ages 6 to 8), How You Got to Be You (ages 8 to 11), The New You (ages 11 to 14), Lord of Life, Lord of Me (ages 14 and up), and Sexuality: God’s Precious Gift to Parents and Children (adults and parents).

Written by six authors and edited by Earl H. Gaulke, the series was five years in preparation. Ronald W. Brusius, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s secretary for family life education, served as consultant, and Frederick J. Hofmeister, M.D., was medical advisor.

But is the Concordia series acceptable for public school use? Yes, because the new series, like its 1967 predecessor, provides information about the social-psychological and physiological aspects of sexuality in a manner professionally acceptable to educators.

But also, no—precisely because the new curriculum’s expanded values component is so explicitly Christian. Sexuality is considered “in the context of our relationship to the God who created us and who redeemed us in Jesus Christ. The series presents sex as another good gift from God which is to be used responsibly.” This, of course, is what the tug of war is all about. Consultant Brusius refers to a National Education Association pamphlet extolling the public school as the ideal place to do sex education because it can do it values-free. “That,” he says, “is nonsense! We can’t do anything values-free. We must recognize that we still do have some power as parents if we express what our values are.” Parents must face the fact that they are their children’s prime sex educators, and the Concordia series, he says, takes their role seriously. Concerned parents should obtain it and get reinforcing support from church leaders. They can also push for public schools to acquire the series as supplementary material.

A former assistant secretary for private education in the U.S. Department of Education, Al H. Senske, sees the potential. “With these new sex education materials,” he says, “all schools, private and public, now have access to reliable, straightforward guides. Thinking administrators will find ways to coordinate the home and school, and in many cases also the church and community, in this vital and awesome responsibility.”

Addie Jurs is a former public school teacher now living in Clarendon Hills, Illinois.

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