The health care bill amendments failed by a vote of 15-8 in committee.
Before you make a joke about how the Democratic party is ineffective, (Why don’t you want a democratic waiter? They fail to give you a bill!), they did pass one thing: more funding for abstinence only sex education.
Abstinence only sexual education preaches one thing and one thing only: please, please don’t have sex.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting deferent results. So why do our policy makers continue to believe that abstinence education is worth our time and, more importantly, our money?
How naive do we think kids are? About one-third of girls get pregnant before the age of twenty, and the state with the highest teen birth rate is Mississippi.
Ironically, Mississippi is also the state with the highest number of people who profess religious values. In fact 10 of the top 15 states that rank highest in religious beliefs are also in the top 15 of teen birth rates.
Why is this so shocking?
Well it’s because (spoiler alert!) kids have sex! It’s hard to imagine them not wanting to. Sex is everywhere in our country.
In music, TV, movies, and the internet, sex is deeply embedded in our society. Look around you, how many sexual references are near you on your TV, your computer, or on the cover of a magazine?
Sit through almost any prime time network show and observe just how much sex you actually see. And it’s not just network sitcoms or dramas; there are even sexual references in cartoons!
Lets just go ahead and pretend kids are too young to notice.
The problem is, (like the very politicians that passed this bill out of committee), abstinence only sex education says one thing while society says another.
Anyone else find it funny that we tell kids that they should save their sexual experiences until marriage and then go watch the premier of Desperate Housewives?
Since we are not planning on changing our sexually driven culture anytime soon (it’s just too much fun), lets change how we teach kids about sex.
Just like that test coming up, pretending kids wont have sex, does not mean its not going to happen.
So lets give kids a fighting chance, teach them about contraceptives. For those who think this simply encourages sex, watch TV. It’s already happening whether you like it or not.
Almost half of 15-19 year-olds have had sex. If we truly want to combat teen pregnancy, let’s teach kids the proper measures, to protect themselves.
Imagine being sick and simply not knowing about a treatment that could have prevented it. Our society tells kids to go have sex and our education system offers no way to do it safely.
Since we have not, and will not be successful in discouraging teen sex, let’s protect them. We need to teach kids about such things as condoms, birth control, etc.
Kids deserve to know how to protect themselves if they chose to participate.
But why should we talk about it in schools instead of at home? Isn’t it the parents’ job to teach kids about sex?
Well, the reason why it does need to be taught in schools is because clearly and statistically it’s NOT being taught at home!
The whole reason schools exist is to teach what cant be taught at home. We teach evolution in public schools, despite some parental objection, because it is a theory that people can chose to accept or not.
Why not give kids the same option? Let’s just say, if you are going to chose to have sex, please do so safely. Why do we mandate a sexual education course and not include safety?
We need to truly combat teen pregnancy by teaching our kids how to be safe.
If out government feels that it is necessary to continue to throw money at our sexual education dilemma, lets make sure that bill is worth it. Unless we finally start giving kids a fighting chance to be safe all we’re doing is leaving kids as the butt of a bad and impractical joke.