The morality objection disapproves of sexual education programs. These
programs, it claims, teach teenagers about all types of sexual behavior,
even though some of these acts are immoral. Because of their age and inquisitiveness,
teenagers will be intrigued by what they have learned. They will then
want to practice these immoral behaviors. Thus, sexual education programs
encourage teenagers to practice immoral sexual behavior that they have
learned from these programs. Since the Norplant for Consenting Teenagers
program requires sexual education and counseling, it is subject to this
objection.
Underlying the morality objection is the assumption that sexual education
programs introduce students to various sexual behaviors and this encourages
students to become sexually active. There is no evidence for this assumption.
In fact, there is evidence that sexual education programs encourage students
to abstain from sex. A study in Atlanta revealed that students enrolled
in a sex education program are significantly more likely to postpone sexual
intercourse through to the end of ninth grade than non-program students.
Likewise, a study of over a thousand students showed that males who participated
in a sexual education program are less likely to have sexual intercourse
than non-participating students. If parents want their children to abstain
from sexual activity, they should be promoting sex education instead of
protesting it.
Ideally it would best if parents would teach their children the health
and moral issues involved with sexual behavior. The problem with letting
parents have total responsibility of their child’s sexual education
is that parents are not doing it. Only 18% of males and 32% of females
in the United States first learn about sex from their parents. Further,
research suggests that there is a great difference between what information
parents think they have conveyed about sex-related topics and what the
teenagers think they heard from their parents. Sexual education programs
offer reliable sources for teenagers to learn about sexual issues and
these programs act as safety nets to guarantee that teenagers have access
to important sex-related information so that they can act more responsibly.
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