by Jessica Westfall
It’s not new news that there are explicit sexual education programs being implemented throughout the western world. It’s hard as a parent to know what to do. In May, Toronto held a boycott against the curriculum, almost 35,000 students didn’t go to school in protest. While parents know the information is too soon for their children, there is a big group of doctors, educators, and mental health experts that say the new curriculum is long overdue. Some parents like parts of the education, like issues about pornography and sexting, but don’t agree with every aspect, like “gender fluidity”. Now, the curriculum is being pushed again, and parents are protesting again.
Parents need information based on science about the good or ill of these programs, but it’s hard to find. Dr. Miriam Grossman is an American expert on the harm of sex education programs. Jack Fonseca is part of the Campaign Life Coalition. Both have information on the sex-education programs, and information on the true discoveries that science has made.
This article outlines the current struggle going on. There are videos from both Dr. Grossman and Fonseca. All four videos are informative and necessary. Dr. Grossman’s video is perhaps the most informative on what current science knows, and what should be taught if there is going to be an option for school curriculum. Her video is about one hour long and covers topics like:
-
Developmentally appropriate information
-
Teenage brains are not developed in the areas of risk evaluation and logic, and they won’t be until the early 20s. If teens get into tempting situations, they are more likely to act on it (no matter how much education they’ve gotten about being “safe”) and make choices they will later regret. It’s important, and more effective and safe, to warn and teach teens to stay out of potentially harmful and tempting situations.
-
In the United States, young adults between the ages of 15-24 contract a sexually transmitted infection every 3.5 seconds, in part because of ignorance.
-
A young girl’s cervix is immature, it’s essentially a bullseye target for infection from viruses and bacteria (a condom isn’t sufficient protection). A young girl is more prone to sexually transmitted infections. As a girl becomes an adult that area is replaced with a tougher lining that is more infection resistant.
-
Physiologically, vaginal intercourse has natural protections against HIV infection while anal intercourse actually promotes HIV infection (anal intercourse is 31 times more dangerous than vaginal intercourse, and that’s a low estimate). Dr. Grossman says that every practicing gay man she has told that to has thanked her.
-
And many more facts that gives parents a better idea of how to defend and protect their children.
Her information is informative and important to battle for proper sex-education in the proper settings at the proper development age. Sex-education should be focused on health, not an ideology where all types of sexual behaviors and lifestyles have the same, fair, outcomes (as in the same ratios risk of negative outcomes like HIV). Reality and science just don’t support that.