U.S. Sex Education Is A Miserable Failure

We are failing our younger generation by refusing to teach them the truth about human sexuality and contraception. It's not that we don't have the knowledge, or don't know how to teach it. It's just that far too many school systems would rather teach religion instead of scientific fact, resulting in the preaching of "abstinence only" instead of the teaching of sex education.

In many of these "abstinence only" programs there is no teaching about contraception at all, and in many others the students are taught lies about contraception -- like condoms are subject to a breakage rate of 31%, that the pill will cause women to contract cancer or to gain weight, that the pill is not as effective as advertised, and that pregnancy can result from the touching of genital areas among other lies. This is doing nothing but producing a generation of young people who are not equipped with the knowledge to prevent unnecessary pregnancies or prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases.

This is verified by a new survey done by the Guttmacher Institute. They surveyed a random sample of young people between the ages of 18 and 29, and their findings were rather discouraging. More than half of all young men and more than a quarter of all young women received a "D" or an "F" on the test -- they flunked it! Even more depressing was that 60% of all the youth underestimated the effectiveness of the birth control pill (which is effective for 999 out of 1,000 women).

But worst of all, 40% of those surveyed said that birth control really doesn't matter because "when it is your time to get pregnant it will happen". With a belief like that, that 40% are very unlikely to use any kind of contraceptive when having sex -- putting themselves at risk for both unwanted pregnancies and sexually-transmitted disease.

I have no problem with any religion teaching their beliefs in their church, temple, or mosque -- but this does not remove the need for real fact-based sex education in our schools. Failing to teach fact-based sex education simply sets too many young people up for a life-altering failure. The religionists seem to think that teaching youngsters about safe sex will make them want to run out and have irresponsible sex (which is odd, since most of these same people don't believe teaching gun safety will make youngsters want to go out and misuse firearms).

We have already failed one generation. How many more will we fail before we wake up and teach the truth?

More Bad News In Potter County

Potter County has had more than its share of bad news in the last few months. The county jail failed its last inspection, the county sheriff was convicted of a felony, two county prisoners were found dead, fees have fallen creating in deficit in the county budget, and the KKK is trying to recruit new members in the county. The county really didn't need more bad news, but it looks like it's here anyway.

The bad news is that the county is one of the leading counties in reported cases of STDs. According to 2006 figures (the last year with official figures), Potter County is second in the state in the rate of gonorrhea and third in the state in the rate of chlamydia.

It seems to be a county thing rather than an area phenomena, because neighboring Randall County has rates below the state average.Unfortunately, the provisional figures for 2007 don't look any better.

Area health officials are trying to figure out what the cause is, but so far have not had any luck. If they can isolate an area of town, a demographic, a local hangout or something along those lines, they would be able to target treatment, prevention and education and hopefully get the rate down. But they have not been able to identify anything so far.