Sounding Board -- Joel Faris

On May 16, Joseph N. Bell wrote about what he perceived as the failure

of abstinence education in public schools (The Bell Curve, “New studies

tell troubling tale”). He cited studies that convinced him that there is

a problem with teenage pregnancy and its prevention.

Bell was right, there is a teenage pregnancy problem. In fact, the

Planned Parenthood study he cited seemed to highlight Costa Mesa’s

southwest corner as perhaps the worst area in Orange County. However,

Bell could not have been more incorrect in his reaction to those

findings. He seemed more than ready to run irresponsibly from abstinence

education without even considering that it itself was not the problem.

(By the way, should it be surprising that the zip code with the highest

teen pregnancy rate -- 92627 -- is also currently home to a Planned

Parenthood?)

Sex education, ideally, would perhaps best be taught at home by either

a mother and/or father or at a place of religious teaching. Honesty would

be the overriding guide to follow and the welfare of the child would be

the primary goal. Unfortunately, this type of family situation is

becoming more and more rare.

Even in the 1980s, when I was a fledgling teenager, my single mom did

the best she thought she could do to help me along (a subscription to

Playboy and the book, “Where Did I Come From”). Increasingly, single

parents are becoming more sophisticated with their less-embarrassed

teens, however, common sense still suggests that two parents would

provide the favorable balance.

In response to the current public school approach to sex education,

Bell quoted a teenager as saying, “We want our schools to teach

contraception and how to deal with relationships.” Believe me, most

teenagers (and many preteens) already know exactly how to get pregnant

and just how to prevent it. What they actually need is to stay at home

under the watchful eye of an adult.

There is really no reason to be surprised that so many teens are

getting pregnant, considering the lax attitude to sex and the

overwhelming freedom of teenagers. Too many young women are becoming

pregnant too young and hinder their opportunities at higher education

and/or better career choices. This, while the young men who participated

in the baby-making process are often off free from those burdens and,

perhaps, continuing to spread their DNA.

Sex is as old as Eve’s entrance in the Garden of Eden, but humans are

not without the capacity to control themselves. In the May 18 issue of

World magazine, Janet K. Museveni, wife of Uganda’s president, was quoted

as saying, “The young person who has been trained to be disciplined will,

in the final analysis, survive better than the one who has been

instructed to wear a piece of rubber and continues with ‘business as

usual.”’

She said this in response to the United Nations’ approach of “tossing

condoms to kids.”

World reported that Uganda has experienced a two-thirds decline in the

rate of new HIV infection cases since it adopted an abstinence approach

in 1995.

Whatever Bell wants to teach his offspring is his family’s business.

I, too, expect and demand that right over my children.

Abstinence is the only method guaranteed not to result in pregnancy or

being infected with a sexually transmitted disease. To teach otherwise is

to take a chance I am not willing to take for the welfare of my future

teenagers and any future grandchildren.

Allow the schools, with parental approval, to teach the science of

human reproduction and the dangers and blessings thereof, but let the

moral decisions be made at home.

* JOEL FARIS is a Westside resident and activist.