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Should teens have sex education in schools?
Results so far:
| Yes | 76% | 4332 votes | Total: 5693 votes | |
| No | 24% | 1361 votes |
Yes
by A. Bailey
Created on: August 30, 2007
Around the age of puberty, sex education should absolutely be taught to children in school. Sex and the human body are subjects that are pertinent to the human life, perhaps the most important ones of all. School is supposed to prepare children for the real world. Children spend more time at school during the week than they do at home, just as most parents in America spend more time at work than they do at home.
It would be beneficial for children to learn about sex and the basics of family planning at an early age. Not all children have siblings at home or have parents with the time or education themselves to be able to teach them.
There are so many people, grown women and men, who do not have the slightest clue about natural family planning, natural child birth, and related issues. When they grow older, they become parents and they must then learn as they go. Often times, they make regrettable decisions because they are uninformed.
Breastfeeding is not widely accepted in our culture; although, it is starting to be respected a bit more. The importance and normalcy of breastfeeding should be stressed to boys and girls in high school. The girls must know that it is the best food for their babies, and the boys must know that the women need their wives' support and approval. Breastfeeding offers many health benefits for the mother as well.
School is to prepare children and young adults for the real world, and sex and child birth are real. It should not be about giving them an egg to tote around for a week to see whose breaks first and whose lasts the longest. That does not scratch the surface of the truly important issues. Our children need to know the truth, and teens should have sex education that explains issues in depth, so that they are prepared for what their futures likely hold.
Girls are not taught how to properly track their menstrual cycle using techniques such as basal body temperature and BBT charting. Natural family planning won't harm a child. They'd have to track their cycle every day. If they took birth control pills, they'd have to remember to take those every day too. What is the difference? The difference is that one is 100% safe to their bodies, and one is not. We have this wonderful non-invasive technology available at a reasonable cost, yet people do not use it.
Some schools are now handing out birth control pills. These medications are normally given by prescription with the exception of the new morning after pill, and it raises the question of how do they get away with it? There are safer ways to protect children from getting pregnant, like condoms and natural family planning techniques using a BBT and/or ferning scope. Going to planned parenthood to get birth control without parental permission is just as wacky as the school handing it out. The point that schools won't give a child a Tylenol without written permission or a doctor note, but they will give out a (dangerous) synthetic hormone pill is outrageous. The young ladies are going through puberty and growing, and the hormones interfere with the rhythm of their bodies. It "cures" acne, yes I know. It can also kill. If a child is taking antibiotics or other drugs, they can make the pill less effective and the child could still end up pregnant. What about when these women grow up and they want to have children, but the synthetic hormones have disrupted their reproductive system to the point of infertility? It happens.
Children deserve the chance to know the truth about their bodies and about life, and learning about it in school along with reading, writing, and arithmetic just makes sense.
Learn more about this author, A. Bailey.
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No
by Crystal Lake
Created on: August 21, 2007
The sexual education of teenagers is only the business of the parents and teenager in question, unless the parents demand that form of education, enroll the student themselves, and assist in the outlining of the curriculum. This is naturally so because sex education is a parent's responsibility, and the curriculum may conflict with what the parent's wish to teach their children; there's also a legitimate concern about how it may implicitly condone premature sexual behavior.
It's true that there are parents who don't teach their children about sex, but it is simply not right that a parent has to make the initiative sometimes to opt their child out just because of the rare circumstance that a parent may not care enough about his children to teach them. No, the solution for this problem shouldn't be to put sex into the public school curriculum. In the community, there should be alternate outreach programs for teenagers. The outreach can involve education sessions for the parents to ensure that they know what to say and when.
The common fear behind all these calls for sex education is the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy, but there are a myriad of dangers that the young person encounters, including drunk driving, drug abuse, careless driving, and very aggressive bullying. Yet, we are focused on sex education! Why? On this same logic of fear, why not have publicly funded alcohol and drug education courses? Why not have mandatory courses in personal finance, conflict resolution, driving (hey, it would knock down a teenager's insurance premiums without them having to spend the hundreds of dollars on driver's ed!), and anger management? What with all the dangers teenagers face both now and in the future, why are crises around premature and promiscuous sexual activity the only ones we seem so focused on trying to prevent as to have whole courses or themes of study stretching for days or even weeks on end?
In addition to these concerns, is how sex education courses may violate the morals that parents are trying to instill into their teens. For example, a comprehensive sex education program as touted by such groups as Planned Parenthood may be fine for parents who support abortion and have little qualms, relatively speaking, about the implicit condoning of teenage sex, but that is not okay for all parents. If it's abstinence only sex education, you have another group who may decide that abstinence is not all they want teenagers to learn from the public schools. At least with the latter group of concerned citizens, there is the opportunity of supplementing the material with information on birth control from other sources, but parents in the former group typically have to choose between Planned Parenthood style sex education or nothing from the public schools and that is assuming that they even know everything about what that course or theme covers! I simply think many of these parents would prefer teaching their children, instead of the schools sticking their collective noses where they don't belong.
The best thing overall is that we tear down all public school facilities, but failing that we should simply leave the educational facilities to vocationally oriented material. Unless one considers prostitution a valid and viable career option, there is simply no reason for sex education in school.
Learn more about this author, Crystal Lake.
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