Ignoring sex education does not appear to be working very well. Bible studies and pretending as though sex doesn't happen with teens is not a policy. Wouldn't it be nice to see this Congress put an end to the silly abstinence programs that cost so much and deliver consistently bad results? Oh wait, we need to be fair to them too despite the facts.Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen pregnancy rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, according to a new federal report released Wednesday.
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What's moral about bringing so many unwanted children into the world? What is so moral about young men and women, barely adult, having to give up any dreams they might have had to support a child (children) at such a young age? It kills me to come home in the afternoon and see so many young girls in my neighborhood (lotta Good Catholics here) pushing baby carriages instead of being in school, instead of looking wide-eyed at the world deciding which part of it to conquer.
When I was 17, the world was my oyster, living in the Far East and enjoying as many of life's pleasures as I could, the last thing I wanted was to be 'in the family way'. Thankfully, birth control and STD protection was available from the military if not in the local area, but in many places in this country it's not an option. We see how well teens can control their hormones just because Preacher Man and Jesus tell them to.
In these lean times, our money can be better spent than supporting abstinence-only sex ed programs (I also have this little constitutional, separation of church and state issue). In this day and age, where people are losing their jobs by the hundreds of thousands, it is wholly unfair to bring unwanted children into the world to young parents whose means are few and potential is slim. Only the children suffer; the teen parents and their babies.
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