ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

I’m preparing to do a post on my position on abortion in conjunction with my article on why I support McCain-Palin, but first I thought I would do a post on a related issue: my position on abstinence education v. sex education. I spent the majority of my adolescence in the Puyallup School District in Washington state, attending either Ferrucci Jr. High or Rogers High School, and I have to say that I’m pleased with the sex education I received there. I was taught what I would describe as abstinence-emphasis sex education, and I believe this is the best form of sex education there is.

As ninth-graders at Ferrucci Jr. High school back in 1996, we were given in-depth information on all of the different forms of sexual contraception. This information covered how effective each form of contraception was at preventing pregnancy, how easy it was to use, how effective each one was at preventing STDs, and the controversies surrounding the use of such contraceptives—for example, whether or not IUDs cause abortions. The program included a long lecture (I remember having to miss several classes for it) by an abstinence speaker named Brad Henning. The fact that I can still remember his name to this day ought to tell you how good I thought his talk was.

The thing that I remember most about the program is that it was repeatedly stressed that abstinence is the only thing that protects you from pregnancy and STDs 100%. A couple can double-up with both a prophylactic and birth control pills and still get pregnant, and condoms don’t necessarily protect you from genital Herpes. One out of 4 or 5 adults is infected with genital Herpes, and that is a scary statistic to me. Why put yourself at risk for that?

I favor the type of sexual education that I received, one that promotes abstinence as superior to all other forms of birth control and STD protection, but still teaches about all the forms of contraceptives out there. Proponents of abstinence-only sex education often shriek that teaching kids about contraceptives will encourage pre-marital sexual activity, while proponents of pure sexual education usually sneer that abstinence-only education “doesn’t work.” Frankly, I think people like me are living proof that both of these groups are wrong. I did wait for sex until I was married (as did my husband), and learning about the different forms of contraception out there didn’t cause me to seek out pre-marital sex. I see no reason why we shouldn’t teach our children the best of both worlds. Put all of the cards on the table and let them choose for themselves.

One final note: another great abstinence speaker I heard while attending a church convention was Pam Stenzel. One of her talks is available on YouTube here.