The Journal

Issue date: 3/3/05 Section: Opinion/Editorial

Maggie Carlson

When it comes to teenagers and sexual education, what they don't know can hurt them.

Information about contraceptives is currently included in classroom discussions about sex education, but a Missouri bill could change that.

Teaching about contraceptives has become a hot topic, since Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O'Fallon) proposed a bill that would allow every school board in Missouri to decide whether or not their classes will use information on contraceptives.

Instead, abstinence discussions would take over: something that is already taught in Missouri as the preferred method of contraception.

Very rarely is less information a good choice, and this topic is no different.

Although the bill might have good intentions, it is impossible to stop teenagers from having sex.

Regardless of what they are taught in sex-ed, teenagers will continue to have sex and suffer the consequences, such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Here are some of the statistics:

* One in four new cases of STDs occurs in a teenager, according to the American Social Health Association.

* Teenagers and young adults account for nearly half the cases of STDs in the United States, according to researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

* There were 10,916 pregnancies by women under the age of 20 in Missouri in 2003, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

* In 2003, there were almost 19,000 reported cases of the STD chlamydia in Missouri alone. This was an all-time high and almost half of the cases are teenagers, primarily females.

With these statistics, I cannot think of anything more reckless than not informing teenagers of how to prevent contracting a disease. Simply pretending it won't happen is naive.

If preaching about abstinence worked, we wouldn't have these statistics in the first place.

During a House Education Committee Feb. 16, Missouri teenagers spoke up about the bill. Although the majority of students spoke against the bill, a few spoke in favor of it.

One student said that learning about contraceptives implied that teachers believed students are not capable of abstaining.

If I was in high school today I would think the opposite. I would be very insulted if I thought my teachers, who I am supposed to trust, didn't think I was mature enough to handle information on contraceptives. When I was in high school I knew that learning about contraceptives was not an invitation to start having sex. No one I knew became sexually active because they learned what a condom was.

Perhaps people are forgetting all of the pressure that teenagers encounter. Maybe this abstinence-only teaching strategy would work if teenagers were free from outside influences like media and friends, and solely depended on teachers for information. But once students walk out those doors, they are in their own world. High school students are not toddlers that can be fooled.

In a perfect world, there would be no teenage pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases, but unfortunately that is not the case. Because of that, the worst possible option is less education.




Maggie Carlson, a senior journalism major, is a staff writer for The Journal.

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