July 9, 2007
Jane Jimenez
America is caught in a battle for the health of our youth.
When left to the common sense of parents, informed and supported by medical facts, clearly the health of our youth depends on their ability to maintain sexual abstinence until marriage.
Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms this sexual abstinence message…although…to avoid public castigation by liberals bent on social re-engineering, the CDC couches their approval in careful linguistics: The surest way to avoid transmission of sexually transmitted diseases is to abstain from sexual intercourse, or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and you know is uninfected.
The average person attests to the wisdom and truth of this message, citing their own life experiences…both the bad…and the good. Sex is a wonderful gift, if treated with respect. Boundaries for behavior are protective. But wait.
If liberals could have their way, young people would be taught that all sex is created equal (uninhibited), and that you can do anything (absolutely anything) you feel you are ready to do with another person (or persons) who feel they are ready to do it, too (consensual sex), hiding behind a bit of latex (protection), without fear of consequences (free and natural).
If liberals could have their way, this message would begin early…in kindergarten…and be legally mandated and federally funded.
But wait. The only way to proceed with the liberal message of free sex is to live in denial and ignorance about the costs of free sex. And, yes, if liberals could have their way, they would have our children do just that.
The battle over sex education, from the liberal perspective, is really a battle to deny truth and to live in ignorance. Truth about sex is being reaffirmed by research. Only a person who insists on living in denial can escape the reality of the cost to our youth of promoting “free sex.”
- Condoms do not adequately protect against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Incurable virus and infectious bacterium live on areas of the body not covered by condoms and not visible to the human eye.
- Even when treated and cured, STDs can exact a permanent cost. Infertility is a painful lifelong consequence of several STDs that wreak havoc on the reproductive system.
- Incurable genital herpes, a virus that condoms cannot claim to prevent, now infects at least one in six over the age of 12. This is one facet of an epidemic of STDs that infect over 70 million Americans today and leads to 19 million new cases each year.
- Victims of STDs are not created equal. Women, with their internal reproductive system, are more susceptible to STDs and their serious consequences. Teen girls are at an even greater risk, with their still-developing tissues and organs especially vulnerable to STDs.
- Emotional consequences of sex are rooted in the chemical makeup of human beings. Oxytocin, a chemical released during sexual activity, creates emotional bonds and vulnerability for women which may explain the higher rates of depression in sexually active female teens.
- In spite of all the HIV/AIDs awareness campaigns over 20 years, HIV infection continues to occur, with approximately 40,000 new infections annually. Seventy percent of new infections are in men, and half of all new infections are in people age 25 or under. Condoms are not recommended by manufacturers as “safe sex” for anal intercourse.
- The CDC reports that “[i]n the United States, HIV infection and AIDS have had a tremendous effect on men who have sex with men (MSM). MSM accounted for 71% of all HIV infections among male adults and adolescents in 2005 (based on data from 33 states with long-term, confidential name-based HIV reporting), even though only about 5% to 7% of male adults and adolescents in the United States identify themselves as MSM.”
The list could go on…and on…and on. Yet, safe in their world of denial, liberals in partnership with the media chide medical experts and educators for speaking the truth about the costs of sex. Preferring denial to truth, liberals dismiss these facts with epithets such as “fear-based”, “shame-filled” and “morality-driven.”
Further still, not content to live in denial themselves, liberals insist on teaching denial to our children. The consequence of their educational plan is to send our children into the world totally ignorant of the truths that could motivate and help young people make the healthiest choice to abstain from sex until marriage.
No wonder that college students Dr. Miriam Grossman (Unprotected) counsels at UCLA are surprised when they realize their emotional and physical pains are linked to current and past sexual activity. Reared in a liberal culture that spent years cultivating ignorance, these students were denied the information they needed to make the best possible choices for health and happiness.
America is caught in a battle for the health of our youth. If you want to know where you stand in this battle, consider the cost. Who is the winner when we teach denial and ignorance?