Sex Education Overhaul

The other day as my co-worker and I were gearing up for our morning, somehow we got on the topic of sex education. She has one son who is now in his 20s. When her son was in high school, she said she bought a box of condoms and kept them in her restroom under the sink. She said she wrestled with herself for weeks on whether or not she should go ahead and give them to her son as a way to ensure that if he was indeed having sex, he would be having safe sex. In the end, she said she left those condoms under her restroom sink. She felt that by giving him condoms, it would be a signal from her that it was okay to go ahead and have casual sex, so she never told him about them. Having children myself (albeit, much younger children who are still years away from that discussion), my heart ached at the turmoil she must have felt deciding what she should do in that situation.

Two days later, I found myself discussing the exact same topic with another co-worker. When the subject was first broached, I naturally assumed that since my co-worker is a staunch Republican, he would fully support the abstinence-only programs spearheaded by the Bush administration. He surprised me when he declared that abstinence-only programs were, in his opinion, unrealistic and unsuccessful. He feels that by speaking to the youth only about abstinence values and withholding information on basic sex education concepts like contraceptive use (condoms and birth control pills) and the consequences of unsafe sex (sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy) is ignoring a very real problem.

The issue of sex education in schools and how far we should go in teaching our youth is very controversial not only between the two political parties but within them, as well. There are abstinence-only programs which focus on educating on the values of abstaining from sex until marriage. Abstinence-plus programs also educate on these same values, but they also add knowledge on contraceptive use and consequences of unsafe sex.

With the new administration, changes have been made across the board, especially concerning fiscal matters. One new proposal in the Obama administration’s budget plan for 2010 is to cut all money being used for these abstinence-only programs. The Obama administration wants to eliminate the budget used on these programs and instead funnel the money into more comprehensive sex education programs; the current administration strongly feels by doing this, teenage pregnancy would be greatly reduced. Their documents state that funding needs to be redirected from “abstinence-only education programs to evidence-based and promising teen pregnancy prevention programs.”

Naturally, a move like this is upsetting many conservatives who strongly support abstinence-only programs. In 2009, abstinence-only programs were receiving approximately $38 million. This funding would be eliminated to make way for a $50 million budget that would support more comprehensive sex education programs that currently exist in addition to researching and creating similar programs. The shift is being made to invest in programs that “provide a range of services in addition to comprehensive sex education.”