Suppose the public schools were to install a course in “Substances” which teaches students that taking drugs is risky because it might damage your health, make you a dangerous driver, and even send you to jail, but that, if you think you might take drugs anyway, please visit Room 202 where our “specialists” will teach you how to avoid getting caught and even provide you with the necessary drug paraphernalia.
The probable reaction would be that parents would organize a protest, a principal would be fired, and new school board members would be elected. But this is exactly the kind of argument that is fueling a new phenomenon: the installation of “sex clinics” inside public schools to dispense contraceptives to unmarried teenagers.
This radical concept has been propelled forward by the argument that, since teenagers are promiscuous anyway (the euphemism is “sexually active”), therefore the schools should teach them how to avoid having babies. These sex clinics and courses teach a strange new definition of the word responsible: “responsible sexuality” means enjoying promiscuity without guilt and without having a baby.
About 30 such sex clinics were quietly introduced into public high schools last year. By last October, the promoters of this new industry felt confident enough to stage a national conference in Chicago to train the emerging army of social service professionals who want to co-opt the schools as rent-free offices for their expanding bureaucracy.
The forces advocating sex clinics have wide access to big foundation money and favorable publicity on big media. CBS 60 Minutes gave Planned Parenthood a full segment to propagandize for sex clinics, omitting the usual hostile interruptions and sneers.
The plan to install school-based sex clinics was recently criticized by Education Secretary William J. Bennett as an “abdication of moral authority.” He said that these clinics “legitimate” sexual activity while encouraging teenagers to have “sexual intimacy on their minds.”
Planned Parenthood and the social service professionals who have a vested interest in providing costly taxpayer-financed “services” to an ever-expanding constituency of “clients” have a typical knee-jerk response. David Andrews, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation, answers that we face the alternatives of “ignorance” or “pregnancies.”
Those are not the alternatives at all. The correct alternative is for the schools to teach teenagers NOT to engage in premarital sex. When we dare to say that, the liberals and sex-clinic pushers make predictable replies.
First, they say, “That’s impossible because it won’t work.” To which we should answer, “You cannot know that because it hasn’t been tried.” Ever since sex education was introduced into public schools about 30 years ago, these courses have consistently censored out all judgmental warnings against premarital sex.
Second, they say, “That’s impossible because teenagers are sexually active anyway.” To which we should answer, “A minority of teenagers are, but the majority are not. If the school legitimizes the immoral behavior of the minority, the school will be validating promiscuity by the majority.”
Third, they say, “You can’t impose your moral values on schoolchildren by telling them that premarital sex is wrong because that would breach the wall of separation of church and state.” To which we should answer, “Nonsense. There isn’t any constitutional difference between teaching teenagers that it’s wrong to have a baby and teaching them that it’s wrong to engage in premarital sex.”
Furthermore, there are many true and powerful reasons to justify teaching abstinence to teenagers without ever mentioning religion or morality. The schools can teach students that promiscuity is bad, risky, unhealthy, and stupid (especially for girls) because its consequences can be incurable VD, emotional trauma, and a forfeiture of opportunities for a lifetime marriage to an honorable and faithful spouse, college and career advancement, and economic security.
A new junior high school course called “Sex Respect” is now being piloted in Chicago schools. With creative lessons, cartoons, and jargon that appeal to teenagers, it teaches how to practice sexual abstinence from a non-religious perspective. It can be ordered from Project Respect, P. O. Box 39, Golf, IL 60029.
