TEN GOOD REASONS TO OPPOSE PUBLIC SCHOOL SEX EDUCATION

1. The primary teachers of children are their parents. It is their right and responsibility to teach sexual morality to their children.
2. Public school sex ed classes ignore individual differences among children and break down the natural modesty of boys and girls. When children are taught academics, such as math and reading, they are given material suitable to their level of readiness for this material. Yet, when it comes to the extremely sensitive area of sexuality, all children in the same grade level are given the same material, even if some are not yet physically or psychologically ready for the material. This is insensitive and harmful. Forcing boys and girls to listen to, view and openly discuss the sexual functioning of the opposite sex’s anatomy while in their presence is embarrassing and contributes to the breakdown of the modesty that is natural and appropriate in human beings.
3. What is taught behind the closed doors of the sex ed classroom can never be known by parents. Learner out-comes and curriculum objectives do not tell parents the teacher’s words, actions, attitudes, and responses that occur as the sex ed lesson is actually taught. This means there is absolutely no way parents can control – or even find out – what their children are being taught about sex unless they sit in the classroom alongside their children for each and every sex lesson.
4. Public school sex ed has never been shown to reduce teen pregnancy or abortion. As a matter of fact, a study in the March 2002 issue of the Journal of Health Economics, entitled “The Economics of Family Planning on Underage Conceptions,” debunks the typical sex-ed theory that providing contraceptives to teens will reduce underage conceptions and abortions. Indeed, the study found some evidence that greater access to contraception is associated with an increase in underage conceptions.
5. The public school has no right to judge the quality of information on sexuality that parents provide their children. Some do a good job, some do a poor job. The school has no right to say they must teach sex because they don’t like the job parents do. The school should stay out of the bedroom.
6. Sexuality involves more than plumbing and birth control pills. The school sends the wrong message to students when their sex ed courses are mere “how to do it and how not to get caught” lessons. The best lesson in sex parents can provide their children is the love and respect they show for each other.
7. When proponents of public school sex ed say kids need to know more, what they really mean is they want to teach our kids to use condoms, the pill, and the IUD, and if they fail, where to get an abortion. These people just don’t want any more babies. They never talk about reducing fornication or meeting the spiritual needs of our children. They focus on bodies when the real concern is souls.
8. Children don’t need sex ed, they need chastity ed. Kids need to learn how to say no and why saying no is in their best interest – physically, emotionally, spiritually. The biology of sex takes ten minutes to teach, so what are the teachers talking about in a five or ten-week course?
9. There is no such thing as “value-free” sex ed. When anything more than the biology is taught, someone’s values are going to be presented. Telling students to “make up your own minds” tells them there are no standards to go by. Telling students “it’s best to say ‘no,’ but if you’re going to be sexually active, be protected” sends them the message that the teacher doesn’t really expect them to control themselves. Presenting birth control without saying it’s wrong for them to use it tells the students the teacher doesn’t think it’s wrong.
10. Public school sex ed attacks and undermines the religious faith of many students. Catholic and Christian students who have been taught by their parents that premarital sex, birth control and abortion are wrong must sit in class and hear an authority figure contradict their beliefs.

Copyright 2002. Used by permission of Julie Blonigen, Executive Director of Human Life Action Council, P.O. Box 705, St. Cloud, MN 56302.