Sex Education: Abstinence or Absence?

“Talk about a lucky freshman. Dude, I’m totally hooking up with this hot chick I met at this awesome frat party tonight. She was ALL over me after I spilled my beer on her Abercrombie tank top. Her friend hooked up with some 25-year old Beta brother, now she needs me to walk her back Smith, SCORE!”

So, these two drunken freshmen trek across campus in silence. Once they reach the fiftieth floor of Smith, they find themselves alone in her dorm room. Random drunk freshman boy thinks “Dude, I’m gonna score!” and starts to make his move. The girl, all of a sudden sober, ruins the moment by pointing out that they have to stop, much to the boy’s disappointment.

“I’m sorry random drunk freshman boy, we can’t do this! We are not married, and President Bush doesn’t think we should have premarital sexual relations. I think you should zip it up and head back to your room”.

So random drunk freshman boy replies in agreement “You’re right, random drunk freshman girl, President Bush spent a lot of tax payers money to implement this progressive plan, and I think we should respect it, so I’m going back to the bowels of Grafton Hall. Good night, oh by the way here’s your underwear back.”

Random Drunk Freshman boy peels the underwear off his head, and drags his drunken butt home.

This is an example of what, in the mind of President Bush, the future will hold for teenagers. His goal is to promote and initiate a plan of complete abstinence education also known as “No Sex is Safe Sex”. In this plan, which started out as what many assumed to be yet another empty campaign promise, Bush calls for over 130 million of the taxpayer’s money to fund this new program.

With a move that seems like something straight out of the Victorian era, Bush has implemented this plan in hopes of curbing teenage pregnancy and the transmission of STD’s among the unmarried and economically devoid. Apparently, somewhere along the way Bush got the idea that marriage was the cure-all for our country’s sexual crisis. With the country’s divorce rate at an all timehigh,this programseems counterintuitive.

Last year, according to the Census Bureau, the recorded median marriage age for couples in the United States was twenty-six years old. According to this plan Bush expects people to wait until their mid twenties before having sex. Do twenty-six year old virgins even exist? If so, we feel really bad for them.

According to this new plan, Public Education Institutions will no longer teach about preventative measures, such as contraception methods, facts of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD’S) and the use of condoms. According to Robert Rector, a supporter in the Conservative movement and spokesperson, discussion of the subject only promotes sexual activity and leads to a “false sense of security”.

Educators are skeptical about Bush’s new approach. Deborah Roffman, a Baltimore Sex Education Teacher was quoted in her latest book Sex and Sensibility: The Thinking Parents Guide to Talking About Sex, “The abstinence only approach is not realistic…to say it is the only option is culturally inappropriate because of the kind of environment we are raising out children in.”

Statistics show that over fifty percent of teenagers aged 15-19 have had sex. For 18-year olds, seventy percent have had sex. These statistics show that teenagers, despite their education on the dangers of intercourse, are still having sex. This is the message Secretary of State Colin Powell is trying to convey, in his open opposition to Bush’s Plan. Powell believes that abstinence education is valuable, but not without resources such as the distribution of condoms, for those who decide to have sex. This plan, formerly named “Abstinence Plus” was implemented by the Clinton Administration in the mid-nineties.

In his campaign, Bush promised “My administration will elevate abstinence education from an afterthought to an urgent goal”. Much to our dismay, this classic conservative way of thinking has been elevated from just another empty campaign promise to a frightening reality in social policy.

Public schools around the country are literally forced to comply with Bush’s latest plan of Abstinence only education, as Federal Funds will be withheld from states that do not support the program. Under the law, the programs must meet one of the “Eight Points” outlined by Bush, including such ridiculous ideas as “teaching that sex outside marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.” Keeping children ignorant about such an important topic is possibly more harmful than the sex itself.

Among the largest consideration of this matter is how much of the tax payer’s money is going to go to this ludicrous plan. Bush is asking for $135 million to fund the program for 2004, which is a thirty percent increase in funding from past years. He even goes as far as to offer compliant states up to fifty million dollars towards their educational funding. Are we putting a price on our children’s sexual health?