Sex Ed ~ January 29,2010

Sex protection or abstinence? This has been the question for teachers and parents alike who have to teach kids about sex. Parents often choose the abstinence choice because they do not want to become a grandparent at a young age. However everyone knows how teenage hormones tend to take control of their minds and make bad decisions for them. In the New York times opinion column, “Sex Ed in Washington” by Ross Douthat was written to raise the awareness of how the politicians in Washington plan to deal with this debate.
Blaming Bush, yet again, for the rise in teenage pregnancies, politicians believe that since Bush stressed the abstinence approach of birth control, more teenagers were not educated about “safe sex” and thus became pregnant. I don’t think that this problem is because of Bush. As it said in the article kids make their decisions based upon who they hang out with, what morals their parents taught them, and what kind of morals the kids themselves have.
In the topic of what we should teach our kids in school, I think we should teach both abstinence and protected sex. I was taught from a very young age that abstinence is the best choice because you don’t have to even think about becoming pregnant, unless your name is Mary and you have a baby because of Immaculate Conception. Kids should be taught with the emphasis on abstinence, but because kids do what they want when they want, they should also be taught on how to avoid becoming pregnant. I don’t believe there is such thing as “safe sex” but there are ways to increase your chances of not becoming pregnant. Also, when a girl does become pregnant, she has to know what to do and how to tell when she does become pregnant.

That's all for now!
~Ali