Bush Official Says Teens Choosing Abstinence Need Support
by Jim Brown
April 1, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Bush administration official overseeing the President's Abstinence Education Initiative says no amount of federal funding can make a teenager choose not to have premarital sex -- it's a decision young people have to make on their own. And, apparently, many are doing just that: recent statistics show that more than 50 percent of teens graduate high school without losing their virginity.Harry Wilson is the associate commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He says research shows more teenagers are remaining abstinent until marriage; but still, every day in America, 10,000 to 11,000 young people contract sexually transmitted diseases.
"A lot of those kids are kids that have come through the condom promotion teachings," Wilson observes, "and still we only have 37 percent condom use, even among the kids who gone through comprehensive sex education. So the only 'magic bullet' is not to have sex."
Of the teenagers the government has surveyed, the government official says, almost all who have had premarital sex said they regretted not waiting until marriage. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that choosing abstinence is a difficult in challenge for youth in contemporary America, remarking that "the air young people breathe" is filled with casual attitudes toward sex.
Wilson feels commerce, media, and the advertising industry are partly to blame for this. "It's older people that have figured that they're trying to sell a product or a service," he contends, "or they're trying to promote a show, and they believe the only way they can really promote that show is by appealing to young people's more 'carnal desires.' But the truth of the matter is, I don't think kids really want that."
In fact, the Family and Youth Services Bureau official says even though legitimization of teenage promiscuity is prominent in the entertainment industry and elsewhere -- even in many public schools -- still more teens are choosing to remain sexually abstinent. It is a counter-cultural choice that Wilson hopes to see encouraged rather than discouraged more often.
Pro-Abstinence Article Pulled From Student Publication
Meanwhile, a First Amendment attorney is calling attention to a case in which a Colorado high school actually censored two student journalists' attempt to address the subject of abstinence in a school publication. He notes that the two young people wrote articles promoting abstinence as the only foolproof way to prevent STDs and teen pregnancy. But Pomona High School officials became uncomfortable with the subject matter -- which included discussion of various forms of birth control and how various STDs are contracted -- and they pulled the articles from the Pomona Perspective student newspaper.
Mark Goodman, who heads the Virginia-based Student Press Law Center, believes the school wrongly viewed the situation as a public relations issue rather than an educational one. "No one can rationally suggest that these topics are not important for teenagers," he says, "and heaven knows, we need young people to make better-informed decisions about their behavior. That's exactly what these student journalists were attempting to do -- give students the tools to make better decisions about their behavior."
But instead of capitalizing on a teaching opportunity, Pomona High School blocked the publication of the two young journalists' articles. And Goodman contends that, by so doing, the school violated the students' rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The Student Press Law Center spokesman says the Supreme Court has held that school officials must show they have some reasonable educationally-based justification for any act of censorship. Also, he notes, "Beyond those First Amendment protections, Colorado is one of about six states that have a state law that also defines the rights of high school student journalists and makes even clearer the legal limitations on school officials' ability to censor."
Goodman notes that under Colorado law, schools cannot arbitrarily prohibit students' free speech. In order to censor student expression, he says, the school officials would have to show that the speech is either unlawful or would create a material disruption of school activities.
According to the First Amendment attorney, Pomona High School needs to reaffirm its commitment to freedom of expression by letting the students publish their ideas and opinions -- especially when they are communicating important facts fellow students need to know, such as the effectiveness of abstinence in preventing disease and unwanted pregnancy.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
