Abstinence-Only Programs…Work?
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the television interviews. I have seen several. And I hate them.
There are a lot of agendas that people and organizations want to push on to our children via the public school system. Be it evolution vs. intelligent design or Marxism vs. Laissez-faire (Free-market) Capitalism.
And there is the abstinence-only debate.
There are those who want to teach children safe sex education from an abstinence-only base to our youth. Here is an interesting article on some statistics from a study that shows some favorable results of teaching abstinence-only.
I can remember watching one interview. The anti-abstinence panelist said something to the effect of:
“We shouldn’t teach kids not to have sex until marriage because studies show that [such-n-such] number of teens still have sex…”
By that logic we shouldn’t:
*tell kids to tell the truth because they all eventually lie a time-or-two
*teach kids not to drive safe because everyone eventually gets into a fender-bender
*train kids to eat healthy because studies show that 10 out of 10 people eventually die anyway (that’s a little joke)
Arguments against abstinence-only programs say they don’t teach kids comprehensive safe sex education, thereby spreading more sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy. That is a straw-man argument and simply not true. Abstinence-only programs contain all of that information…but they teach it from a base of NOT having sex as the best approach.
So what is the real deal in arguments against?
Did you know abstinence works every time it is used? We should always teach our children what is best. Studies show that people who wait to have sex are happier, have more long term relationships, less disease, and overall better health.
I believe this is really an argument about religion by proxy: abstinence implies morality which implies religion. I think that’s why people get so mad and are against it. No one likes the implication that they aren’t moral (or moral enough). I get it, but we should still do what’s best (and true) for our children.
Right?
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Thanks Jennifer!
People deserve wealthy life and mortgage loans or just collateral loan will make it much better. Because people’s freedom is grounded on money state.
Thanks for sharing this. I get uber peeved whenever this argument against abstinence comes up, and I never thought of using said argument against eating healthy and driving safe to show how ridiculous it is. This is one abstinence only woman who dosen’t regret waiting for marriage. 🙂
Yes, of course. I say that in the post. But most opponents of abstinence-only don’t want to even teach abstinence as part of the overall curriculum.
Teach abstinence BUT also teach safe sex… isn’t that better?