Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Sex in the City High School   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Steve Waldman writes:

Mohler then goes the next step of criticizing Hollywood for glamorizing premarital sex. In other words: want to stop teen pregnancy? Avoid premarital sex.

This to me points up what ought to be a real dilemma for religious conservatives. Ideally, they'd like to have less premarital sex, less use of contraception, less teen pregnancy, less out-of-wedlock birth, and fewer abortions.

But what if they could win on a few of those by giving in on a few others? Specifically, isn't it likely that if contraception use were higher that teen pregnancy, out of wedlock birth and, most important, abortion would be lower? If that were the case, wouldn't it be morally incumbent on conservatives to lead the way for greater contraception use? To use the moral language of the pro-life movement, aren't those who oppose contraception responsible for the deaths of thousands of babies?

I know that the standard response is that through abstinance you can have it all: less sex, out-of-wedlock births, fewer abortions. But if it could be proven that contraception led to even fewer abortions, wouldn't you have to become aggressive advocates of contraception use?

I think the biggest obstacle here is that we're looking at a problem and looking for a stop-gap solution. Kids have a warped view of sex. How do we fix that, while we simultaneously let them watch One Tree Hill? Give them condoms! But see how that's a problem? We want to teach our kids well. We want them to treasure all their gifts. We want them to see themselves as complete persons who have values and have reasons for those values, and who won't compromise them because they know there is more to life than whether that cute guy "likes" her or what his friends think of his scorecard.

We need to be doing more than simply saying "don't have sex." Of course that won't work. They're not stupid, they're human and know there's something appealing about it! And they shouldn't be told otherwise. But they should understand that there's more to want, and that they should hold out for more — for those they "love," or love. We need to seriously consider, invest time in, and talk about character formation. This is why — or should be why — some of the religious schools exist. This is what the Best Friends Foundation does for schools. Abstinence education should not/cannot be about walking into a classroom and saying "NO FUN FOR YOU!" It's gotta be about teaching and learning and living and seeking self-respect — whether it be in a class setting (something easier to do in, say, a Catholic or other religious school) or an afterschool activity; this should be a Church and community endeavor. It's about showing kids a full life; it's sane and it's necessary. And it's not where a lot of the conversations about teen pregnancy arise.

07/30 10:03 AMShare