Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Poll says parents overwhelmingly back abstinence education

Lately there's been a lot of attention given to the roll and responsibility of government schools regarding the teaching of sex education to students. Both sides of the debate have recently stated their claims as to whether or not abstinence-only education is effective for reducing teen pregnancies, abortions, and STDs. Since statistics can and do lie, I prefer to focus on what's "right" or "wrong". Ultimately, the education of our children, both moral and secular, is the responsibility of the parents. That is not only by the law of the land, but by the Law of God. If your child does not attend school and is not receiving an education, who is held accountable by the state? Who will be held accountable before God?

Now, it's been my experience that those to aforementioned authorities may have some differing viewpoints on exactly what qualifies as "education". Especially when it comes to sex education. Most parents in America would prefer to appease the "higher" authority when it comes to subjects such as sex education as indicated in a recent Zogby survey discussed in this article at OneNewsNow.com.
A new survey shows the majority of parents across the U.S., regardless of their economic or ethnic background, support abstinence education over comprehensive sex education.

What I find as especially surprising is that the numbers change when the amount of information regarding "comprehensive" vs. "abstinence-only" education is given to the parents.

The National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) is drawing attention to the Zobgy survey, which claims when parents become aware of what abstinence education teaches versus what comprehensive sex education teaches, support for abstinence programs jumps from 40 percent to 60 percent, while support for condom-based "safe-sex" programs drops from 50 percent to 30 percent.

NAEA executive director Valerie Huber says she is convinced there has been a "misinformation campaign" about abstinence education throughout the media.

"Once parents understood that abstinence education is really holistic and includes some of the core components, such as building healthy relationships, strengthening self-control, developing skills that will improve their chances for a healthy future marriage, and even the benefits of choosing abstinence after being sexually active," Huber notes, "parents want that message given to their teens."
(emphasis added)

As parents, we need to be asking these questions. Some of these questions are definitly "hard" and may make us "uncomfortable", but what's more important? There's a train a comin'. This country, and in particular your children, are going to have to have to reap what is being sown in government schools today. The curriculum that is being promoted as "medically accurate" is not necessarily "morally correct".

In Washington state, SB 5297 was signed by Gov. Gregoire on May 2, 2007. This new law requires all schools to teach sex education in compliance with the "Guidelines for Sexual Health Information and Disease Prevention". For an assessment of exactly what this new law means for your children, read this HANDOUT in OPPOSITION of ESSB 5297 that was published at Positive Christian Agenda (PCA) prior to it's passage.

The curriculum is already being put into action at King County schools through the Family Life and Sexual Health (FLASH) program which includes a sex-ed vocabulary bingo game for 4-6th graders and a roll-playing / decision making class regarding teen parenthood as an option to "choose".

1 comment:

Scott Blaine said...

This abstinence poll is about inflencing public opinion NOT accurately measuring it. Read this analysis of the poll:

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2007/05/17/if-only-this-absitnence-poll-were-honest-debunking-naea