Should Sex Education Teach More than Abstinence?

YES

Dorothy Williams is director of publications for the Search Institute, a research organization based in minneapolis. She has developed sex education curricula for use in churches and public school.

What are the goals of your organization’s sex education programs?

Our materials state seven values—equality, honesty, respect, responsibility, promise keeping, self-control, and social justice. We base recommendations for behavior on those values. Our primary recommendation is abstinence. It’s my personal moral judgment that abstinence is by far the best method.

Then why teach anything else?

There has been a long silence on the part of people with strong moral views. We are dealing with the consequences of people not saying enough about abstinence and responsibility in sexual behavior. Some kids in the public schools are not going to be abstinent. It is unrealistic to expect them to change because abstinence is recommended.

When you describe alternatives to abstinence, aren’t you implying acceptance of those alternatives?

That’s a difficult question, but kids have the right to know there are other methods available. They wonder why married people don’t have one child after another. That’s a logical question. When young people are old enough to ask this question, they are old enough to be told the truth.

A teacher’s function is to help people see and understand truth, not to force-feed it. Teachers must be clear in what they recommend and the reasons behind it. But they can’t stand over kids with clubs and say, “You’ve got to do this.” They are dealing with a variety of kids who come from a wide range of homes and experiences.

Advocates of birth-control education point to problems like teen pregnancy and AIDS. Shouldn’t young people learn that irresponsible behavior can have dire consequences?

For some, the so-called punishment for irresponsible sexual behavior is a life-threatening disease. That punishment is too severe for the crime. I want to protect kids from having their whole lives changed because they parented children they didn’t want; or from having their lives shortened because they contracted a sexually transmitted disease. In addition, these kids are not prepared emotionally for sexual experiences.

Opponents of birth-control education say it has actually increased the number of unwanted pregnancies.

I am always anxious to examine the design of any study in which this claim is made. But I haven’t seen any evidence that teaching birth control increases sexual activity. Kids will engage, or choose not to engage, in sexual behavior whether or not they know about condoms.

What is the best way to handle sex education in schools?

It should not start with physiology, but with values. Also, I am a strong advocate of parental involvement. Parents have a chance to see our curricula before they are taught.

NO

Forrest Turpen is executive director of the Christian Educators Association International, based in Pasadena, California. He has been a public-school educator for 20 years.

How do you respond to critics who say pushing the idea of sexual abstinence has not worked to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases?

For the last 20 years American teenagers have heard society’s message of free-wheeling sexuality. But our young people have not heard a well-reasoned analysis of why abstinence is the best way to handle their feelings and sexual desires.

So teaching abstinence can work?

It is the only thing that works. Kids want parameters. They respect teachers and parents who are firm in their convictions and have set limits. I believe most kids would abstain if the standard were set.

Is it right to impose the Judeo-Christian value of chastity on people who subscribe to other value systems?

Virtually all religious traditions in our society teach abstinence in sexual matters. There is only a small group of people who don’t subscribe to any religious values. Even those parents want their children to have the very best. And generally they know that premarital sex can have disastrous psychological effects on young people as they enter into a marriage relationship.

Can’t other methods help reduce problems such as teen pregnancy and the spread of AIDS?

Statistics show that teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases have increased since sex education was started in the 1960s. Short of a committed, monogamous relationship, there is no such thing as absolutely safe sex.

What if it were proved that sex education works?

Ends don’t justify means. God’s Word is clear, and his laws are absolute. I don’t believe he would be honored by an end product achieved at the expense of morality, even if that product looks good and seems to be effective. You have to consider the degradation of society in general that would result from promoting promiscuity.

How should sex education be handled in schools?

Children inevitably receive an education in sex. The question is how. I believe very strongly that parents are ordained of God to be the primary teachers of their children.

I advocate that all sex-education programs be written, or at least reviewed, locally by parents, teachers, and leaders of as many religious faiths as possible. Common goals and understandings are needed. And parents should have the option of not allowing their children to participate.

Theodore Roosevelt said that to educate a child in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. I maintain that all sex-education programs should uphold three essentials for a stable society: premarital chastity, monogamous marriage, and fidelity in marriage. To teach anything else is to do our children a major disservice.

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