abstinence or sex education?

What do you really think?

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What is appropiate to teach our children?

I found in many cases that a lot of families don't know what the sex education provided in our health classes includes. And though most parents would like a segment on abstinence, the two are usually taught separately. In fact, in many states, they are seen as two seperate curriculums.

For example, the Center for AIDS Prevention says, "the content of sexuality education curricula in America varies widely by region, by school district, and, sometimes, by classroom. The highly charged political debate concerning sex education could lead most people to believe there are hard and fast divisions between educational approaches. In fact, there are multiple program designs, many of which resist clear classification, or share components of seemingly opposing approaches. For this monograph, we use the definitions commonly found in the sex education debate: curricula are grouped into the two broad categories of comprehensive sex education (also often called “abstinence-plus”) and abstinence-only until- marriage (or “abstinence-only”) education. The former generally emphasizes the benefits of abstinence while also teaching about contraception and disease-prevention methods, including condom and contraceptive use. By contrast, abstinence-only programs generally teach abstinence from all sexual activity as the only appropriate option for unmarried people. Absitinence programs usually do not include detailed (or any) information on contraception for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies."

Here's the issue at hand. Comprehensive sex education (abstinence-plus) sounds great, but indeed, in most cases, there are few educators pushing abstinence. We are actually having this issue right now in the schools of Rochester, NY because educators are wanting to provide condoms to every teenager between the ages of 12 and 18. And most Abstinence-only programs say the kids already have condoms and don't use them. This won't solve the issue of "safe" sex, it only promotes it more.

What do you think?

Side note: If you would like to get involved in the sex issue in Rochester. There is a meeting tonight. Meeting: Forum on Teen Health 6-8:30pm March 16th (Wed.)131 W. Broad Street -3rd floor conference room Central office