Condoms Do Not Equal Sex Education
Despite what Morbo seems to think, condoms ≠ sex education. The point isn’t completely off base, but the solution is not to start handing out condoms at school. At least not without a pretty full course of education on responsibility and good sexual behavior. Of course, as much as I would like to think that it would like to think it would for my kids, abstinence only works in a handful of kids. So what is the solution?
Hell if I know. At least Morbo sees that it’s not quite right to be giving condoms to 11, 12, and 13 year olds. Well, at least not without explicit parental approval. The thing that Morbo and many others have overlooked here is that it is illegal in Maine to have sex if you are under the age of 14! So, by giving these students condoms and birth control, they are assisting them in breaking the law.
The bottom line here is that we should be looking at the necessity of the situation as a failing of both the school system and, even more importantly, of the parents. If parents would take the initiative to educate their children on the subject, we’d have a lot fewer problems like this. The problem is that parents are expecting our school systems to do the educating. Well, we all know how well that’s going. No Child Left Behind isn’t exactly a soaring success.
In the end, I can only go off of my own experiences. And I know that if condoms had been more available, I would have used them much more often than I did. So I’m all for condom availability in high school and above. In fact, studies show that condom availability reduce teen pregnancy rates and don’t have any recognizable effect on sexual activity. Birth control is not something the schools should be giving out. Prescription drugs are something a parent should be involved in.