Comprehensive sex ed needed

I am a high school freshman at Shawnee Mission East and am surrounded each day by talk of sex, including revelations of new sexual experiences many of my peers are practicing. I am concerned that they are not being safe.

In health, we only learn about abstinence. It seems that they think that by simply telling us not to have sex, no one will. I have found however that kids are willing to take the risk because they do not understand the gravity of the decisions they are making.

Learning about abstinence is not enough. We need an education program that will reveal the consequences of not practicing safe sex and includes information about contraception, healthy communication, responsible decision making and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections.

I strongly encourage you to join in the campaign and make known the need for fully funded, comprehensive sex education in our school systems.

Eden McKissick-Hawley 
Leawood

Comments

[Kristin]

Hi Eden,
I accidentally came across your post and want you to know that I hear what you are saying, which is, the education you are receiving doesn't seem to be working for everyone at your school. I don't think it's fair to ask you to be an educator to your peers, but based on the responses you received, it may be your only option. Some people have an axe to grind, and reality isn't going to stand in their way, you know? So if there is any way you can educate yourself more and give information to your friends and/or ask your friends to hit up the schools or their parents for information, then that may be the best way to change things in the long run. Protect yourself and make choices based on your long-term wellbeing, work on your relationship with yourself and the rest of your relationships will fall into place. Sex is good - but there are some serious consequences that your friends probably aren't prepared to deal with. And, to correct some of the information on this thread, health education DOES work by reducing risk and ps nobody wins or makes money off of abortions. Planned Parenthood is probably the best advocate for these nay-sayers' kids just because PP is actually listening to you and not just filling up the air with dogma. The world would be a better place if people would take the cotton out of their ears and put it in their mouths and listen to people like you who are really wanting things to get better! Form a meetup group, ask your local Planned Parenthood about health education presentations and get your classmates to attend with you (probably off campus!). Good luck - maybe you will be a future health educator?

[jezberg]

I attend SME, and sex is rampant. I partake in promiscuous behavior almost every weekend.

[parkay]

You show your ignorance, Eden, there is no safe promiscuity. Condoms and contraceptives have significant failure rates. Condoms cannot prevent transmission of some diseases like HPV and chlamydia. Abstinence educaton should include significant focus on how teenagers can avoid situations which could lead to compromising their safety as well as their morals.

[Mark Robertson]

Actually the book, The Theology of the Body for Teens, was written by Jason and Crystalina Evert and Brian Butler.
Christopher West has written the book, The Theology of the Body for Beginners, as well as numerous other books and sources on the subject brought to prominence by Pope John Paul II. Thankyou.

Mark Robertson
Independence

[Mark Robertson]

Eden, you have been brainwashed by some entity, likely your school, the media, peers, and who knows, maybe even your parents or guardians.
Suggested reading: The Theology of the Body for Teens, by Christopher West.
Thankyou.

Mark Robertson
Independence

[Mark Robertson]

A 2008 study from the Center for Disease Control shows that one in four adolescent girls in the U.S. has a sexually transmitted disease. This shouldn't come as a surprise though, the "comprehensive sex education" being taught in public schools actually promotes promiscuity.
Sex education in public schools is comprised of agenda driven propaganda from Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, and Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.(SIECUS)
The notion of "safe sex" is such a lie. The only safe sex for high schoolers is abstinence. The leftist say that is not realistic. But as Dan Beyer and others point out, is it realistic that youth should not take drugs or speed in cars?
Sex education in the U.S. and in much of the world is all about agenda and of course cash. Planned Parenthood wants to get young people sexually active so that they will purchase abortions and contraception from them.
These so-called comprehensive programs
do not teach students about the emotional damage brought about by sexual promoiscuity either. Sexually active youth have high levels of depression and other emotional distress. (Heritage Foundation)
The decades of comprehensive sex education have taken our society from having basically two sexually transmitted diseases, syphilis and gonorrhea, to having more than two dozen, including some incurable viruses and the often fatal HIV.(From book: You're Teaching My Child What? A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Education and How They Harm Your Child, by Miriam Grossman M.D. Also check out similar books by Meg Meeker M.D.)
Is this what they call "progressive?"
Abstinence education is actually a positive and the only comprehensive form of sex education. Public schools are not the place where any kind of sex education should be taught, because the only effective sex education has to be values based, and values come from a higher source. A concept that is totally void in the truly dangerous propaganda being taught in most public schools under the label of sex education. Thankyou.

Mark Robetson
Independence

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

Our children better get used to change (jingle jingle). Fashionable vocabulary at best. Parents and a social fabric that endorses and excuses promiscuous behavior is part of the problem, the other is the advocacy and rewards system the government provides. When you reward bad behavior, this is what happens. How many paper mmill commercials do you hear about "I'm a single dad"? None.

[Keith Williams3]

Although the fundamentals of life should imply we also so know times change therefore on top of the fundamentals of how we teach our children have to change.

[Dan Beyer]

When I was in school a lot of people were talking about drugs. Fortunately for us students the teachers didn't start handing out syringes! They instead taught us in a comprehensive way the dangers of drugs and how not to do drugs.

[Zeno]

T, I called him out because what was said is not true. I know that is hard for you libs to understand.

[hajkar]

Geez. Such stale rhetoric.

[hajkar]

In which cheek was your tongue implanted?

[Bohemian]

astroturf

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

Mainstream society and media glamourize liberal behavior. Government rewards it.
What should we expect.

[T. Hanson]

"And these issues are dealt with at SME as I have had 3 go through in the last 10 years. The letter is a sham. "

Ahh... Someone express' their feelings and you called him out as being a "sham" because you disagree with him. Nice.

[Zeno]

"Safe sex" implies that if the student does not get pregnant or an STD then it is safe?

And these issues are dealt with at SME as I have had 3 go through in the last 10 years. The letter is a sham.

[Keith Williams3]

My niece goes to east and says it is nothing to talk or engage in activities of the sexual nature and it’s not hidden from other partakers. I told her to walk away she will appreciate it later. These kids take the risk because masturbation feels good to them and the cute boy or girl will only enhance it. Yes I said; these kids are going to do what they want to do and part of why they do that is lack of parenting educationally wise and just being in the kid’s life. My niece has friends that live in a big four bedroom house by themselves because the parents have another home on the lake somewhere.

I teach to the kids I mentor that sex is for adults but I also teach the fundamentals of sex. Parents say I don’t want my kids knowing about condoms ok then they won’t use them. I don’t want them to know about morning after pills ok so take even more risk. Just say no like you do with drugs but they have to be protected.

[Kate]

This is a very well-written letter and I commend this young person for being concerned about fellow students. But, I think the problem is the sense of indestructibility that all teenagers have, combined with raging hormones, and not a lack of knowledge. Way back when I was in high school – back before the Internet was a gleam in Al Gore’s eye – everyone knew about birth control and prevention of STDs. And young people today have much more access to information than we did. We really don’t need to be taking up valuable school time with this.

P.S. Eden, if you’re listening to high school boys, three quarters of the stuff they’re bragging about is pure fiction.

[Kee]

Tongue was planted firmly in cheek Hijacker, get over yourself.

[hajkar]

Yep. And we've had unwanted pregnancies and abortions all that time as well. Let us stay ignorant.