David McRaney  |  Journalist

Abstinence campaign laughable

I had to laugh this week when I learned that another administration is suggesting that kids, “Just say no!” Except this time the focus is on sex and not drugs.

The Bush administration is prepared to spend about $131 million on a new propaganda campaign aimed at high school students in hopes of lowering the rate of teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and the general decline of western civilization by asking teenagers to abstain from the act entirely.

The problem with this new campaign is that it discourages teaching teenagers about safe sex practices and the use of contraception. The general idea coming from the people involved with promoting this campaign is that nothing stops the spread of AIDS and the birth of unwanted children quite as potently as abstinence.

Personally, I see this as a tremendous waste of time and money. We are talking about a basic human drive here, and the people who we are asking not to have sex have a hard time managing the responsibility of taking out the trash.

Nothing is going to prevent a certain percentage of teenagers from having sex and experimenting with their sexuality during high school. Our overly puritanical society has generated the very problem that this ridiculous campaign is attempting to salvage by not providing these individuals with the knowledge that they need and the contraception that they should be using.

Some people suggest that talking frankly and realistically about sex while providing teenagers with free birth control would only enflame the problem. I have never understood the logic in this argument. It is like saying seatbelts and driver’s education promote car accidents or that teaching gun safety increases the rate of hunting accidents.

It makes more sense to hand that kid a condom and tell them everything good and bad about having sex at an early age and allow that teenager the opportunity to make an informed decision rather than expect them to refrain and hope for the best. Besides, let’s face it, it is not cool to be celibate, and for a lot of teenagers, being cool is more important than being safe.

The most frightening part of this to me is that we expect our schools and our government to teach our kids the things they need to know about sex. Many parents believe that the less they have to say about the subject, the better.

Shouldn’t this be one the most sacred duties of every parent? Once puberty comes knocking, every teenager wants to know what is going on inside his or her crazy head, and would probably appreciate some sort of interest in their condition from the people that told them everything else about the world.

I would like to see a government, and a society that trusts teenagers enough to give them both birth control and sex education instead of hiding the truth from them and withholding protection.

There has been a sincere lack of trust between the establishment and the youth of America for several generations, and rightly so. The establishment just doesn’t know what it’s like to be kid today.

Wasting over a hundred million dollars on an abstinence program that is doomed to fail suggests to me that they don’t understand much about what it’s like to be an adult either.

Originally published in The Student Printz on January 27, 2005