Is Teaching Abstinence Inspiring or Unrealistic?

I take exception to Surgeon General David Satcher’s report regarding sex education and to your July 2 editorial, “Sex and Science.” The media and public schools provide more information on all aspects of sex than ever before. Yet the policy to give more information seems to have failed, as evidenced by 1.4 million abortions every year and 12 million people newly infected with sexually transmitted diseases, including 40,000 new HIV infections.

When abstinence was stressed in classrooms across America just a few decades ago, we were expected and inspired to wait. Most of us did, but unlike teens today, those who succumbed to temptation didn’t jump from one bed to another. Today our children are stimulated with excessive information, condoms are freely handed out and teachers demonstrate how to use them. While certainly not the intent, is it a surprise that kids consider this an invitation to promiscuity and rationalize that adults don’t really expect them to have any self-control?

Bonnie O’Neil

Newport Beach

So the Bush administration is embarrassed by the report on sexuality (“Satcher’s Sex Report Puts Bush in Hot Seat,” June 30). I hate to be the one to pull them kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but welcome, gentlemen. Young people are having sex, and while we educators do not want to encourage this, touting only abstinence is neither realistic nor successful. Education is the vital weapon against the rise of sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS and unwanted pregnancy. People are not going to know about a sexual disease until they are taught.

The “just say no” message of pure abstinence offers young people nothing in the way of true self-knowledge. Teaching people that there are options will let individuals make informed choices rather than maintain the in-the-closet ignorance preferred by the religious right and, evidently, the Bush-Cheney administration.

Michael Hager

Ventura