Editor,
First let me say that I do not necessarily believe that abstinence education will really help matters any, unless handled in a certain way, but I disagree with what Elizabeth Gross has to say.
The problem with abstinence education is that many young people simply lack good judgment and common sense. They believe they are untouchable by things like HIV or pregnancy, and they will listen to their bodies and not their minds.
For this same reason, educating teens about "safe sex" isn't going to help either. This country has been teaching sex to kids, and it doesn't seem to have done very much for us so far. Kids still get STD's, they still get pregnant - why? Because when it comes right down to it, they don't feel like fooling with precautions - they don't have the time, or the money, or maybe it simply ruins the moment.
What young people should be learning about are consequences. People always talk nowadays about how much America's children have to deal with in these modern times. You sure wouldn't know it by looking at teenagers - they're selfish and irresponsible, much like toddlers, really. It's time they learned about the consequences their actions can have. Maybe they could go on a field trip and visit some people who are dying of AIDS. Maybe they could visit the local welfare office and see the women who are in their early twenties, already with numerous children by different men. Maybe they could go to an abortion clinic and see a baby, or fetus, if you prefer, being killed because the condom broke. This would be good abstinence education.
That sure sounds like a better plan than handing out condoms and discussing STD's with a kid who is too immature and irresponsible to care, and could never handle the possible consequences of having a sex life.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
We have sex education in many places in this country, but even if we didn't, kids know about what's out there, I know I did. They know what pregnancy and STD's are, and how they happen. They just don't care about them, because they think nothing like that could ever happen to them. All this knowledge has done nothing for us, and our government is surely spending BILLIONS a year on welfare for the woman who never finished school because she got pregnant at 16, on treatment for all the various STD's, on care for unwanted children. $133 million for something that could possibly help, depending on how it's handled, would be a drop in the sexual bucket.
Ms. Gross seems to think that making the mature decision to wait until you're old enough and wise enough and have enough to handle the consequences of sex is an antiquated idea. No wonder the country is in so much trouble.
Ashley Pfalz
Daily Lobo reader
