For me, reaching our youth and educating them about the importance of healthy relationships and making positive choices is essential! I believe that if our young people are equipped with truth and awareness they will be more likely to succeed and it's our responsibility as individuals, as parents and as a society, to prepare these young men and women for the challenges they may encounter. I think the first way in which we are failing our youth is by not giving them the tools they need to make educated and healthy choices. We are sending them mixed messages about sex by saying on the one hand, yes, abstinence is the only true 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy but then also telling them that they are going to have sex anyway so they should "protect" themselves with condoms and other types of contraceptives. How is that really protecting them? We all KNOW that "safe sex" is a broken concept because we can no longer even call it "safe sex" we now call it "safER sex" because it's not safe, it's not truly protecting them from the consequences of careless sex.
With contraception, we can absolutely predict that some sexual encounters will result in pregnancy. The young, the poor and the unmarried are the most likely to experience a contraceptive failure. For these groups, pregnancy is not a rare accident, but highly likely. When the inevitable pregnancy occurs, guess who is ready to help solve her problem? That’s right: Planned Parenthood will sell her an abortion. The same people who teach sex education, which increases the demand for purchasing contraception, also sell the “solution” to contraceptive failure, which is abortion. Yet the federal government spends about $12 on contraceptive-related programs to every $1 spent on abstinence education.
We don’t give federal grants to tobacco companies to teach students “low-risk” forms of smoking on the grounds that “kids are going to smoke anyway.” We shouldn’t be giving federal grants to groups that sell contraception, to teach kids to use contraception.
Ever heard the phrase: "Medically Accurate, Comprehensive Sex Education"?
If that were PP’s rationale, then it would only advocate for abstinence before marriage and fidelity to one’s spouse afterward, as it is the most “superior safer sex strategy” since it is 100 percent effective. We contend that the real reason Planned Parenthood doesn’t support abstinence focused education is simply because it isn’t one of the services PP sells.
I do believe that the abstinence focused education needs to focus more on the benefits of why practicing chastity is a positive thing, not just that it prevents pregnancy and STDs but that valuing ourselves and our sexuality enough to wait allows for true freedom and expression. Because the time will come where we can share ourselves freely and openly without fear of negative consequences and that time should come with the certainty that our spouse shares the same love, honor and respect that we have for them. You can't have the kind of freedom and respect outside of marriage, that's the reality. Chastity is not about preventing so much as it is about providing a foundation for true love and true freedom. That's the message I believe our teens need to hear.
- 1 in 5 adolescents currently have an STD
- Nearly 50% of teenage girls become pregnant while using the contraceptive pill and over 70% become pregnant while using condoms.
- The percentage of pregnancies that occur from abstinence is 0%.
With contraception, we can absolutely predict that some sexual encounters will result in pregnancy. The young, the poor and the unmarried are the most likely to experience a contraceptive failure. For these groups, pregnancy is not a rare accident, but highly likely. When the inevitable pregnancy occurs, guess who is ready to help solve her problem? That’s right: Planned Parenthood will sell her an abortion. The same people who teach sex education, which increases the demand for purchasing contraception, also sell the “solution” to contraceptive failure, which is abortion. Yet the federal government spends about $12 on contraceptive-related programs to every $1 spent on abstinence education.
We don’t give federal grants to tobacco companies to teach students “low-risk” forms of smoking on the grounds that “kids are going to smoke anyway.” We shouldn’t be giving federal grants to groups that sell contraception, to teach kids to use contraception.
Ever heard the phrase: "Medically Accurate, Comprehensive Sex Education"?
To the average person, a program that claims to be “comprehensive” and “medically accurate” sounds very acceptable. At face value it is almost understandable that school boards and city councils would be taken in by a program described like this.
However, the problem is that when Planned Parenthood claims that its sex ed programs will be “comprehensive” and “medically accurate,” it is lying, plain and simple. According to Planned Parenthood “condom use is, by far, a superior safer sex strategy.”If that were PP’s rationale, then it would only advocate for abstinence before marriage and fidelity to one’s spouse afterward, as it is the most “superior safer sex strategy” since it is 100 percent effective. We contend that the real reason Planned Parenthood doesn’t support abstinence focused education is simply because it isn’t one of the services PP sells.
I do believe that the abstinence focused education needs to focus more on the benefits of why practicing chastity is a positive thing, not just that it prevents pregnancy and STDs but that valuing ourselves and our sexuality enough to wait allows for true freedom and expression. Because the time will come where we can share ourselves freely and openly without fear of negative consequences and that time should come with the certainty that our spouse shares the same love, honor and respect that we have for them. You can't have the kind of freedom and respect outside of marriage, that's the reality. Chastity is not about preventing so much as it is about providing a foundation for true love and true freedom. That's the message I believe our teens need to hear.
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