Sex Ed’s Moral Battlefield
Sex and sex education are topics that get a lot of public attention, generally from the ensuing battle of morality. There seems to be two distinct groups; one who believe that sex is holy and one who believes that sex is just sex. Those categories are then broken down into a multitude of variables, but ultimately the dividing line between these views is pretty clear and always present.
And it makes sense. Anytime a potential outcome could result in another human life or lives should be taken seriously -- which is why society creates laws that govern issues surrounding sex, like (age appropriate) consent. It is also why half the population has been threatened into action, as more and more restrictions are placed upon women of reproductive age.
Birth control is one of those issues that falls into the moral and/or religious divide, spanning the spectrum of those who believe it to be an affront to their creator, to those who see no harm in being able to control the size and/or timing of their families. As with anything related to sex, it is a highly personal decision.
A highly personal decision that gets legislated more often than not and always has. Ensuring the general public has a shared baseline of understanding of an assortment of subjects and interactions with a variety of people and cultures is the point of public education, so that communities can function well now and in the future.
Health classes should include basic, age-appropriate facts and information regarding sexual health, but many parents and caregivers are simply not okay with such private matters being taught outside of the home or religious community. Perhaps it is out of fear, perhaps ignorance, but keeping our kids in the dark about their bodies, their growth and maturity, their functions and roles in the world, doesn't keep them safe; it keeps them vulnerable to the predatory world that awaits them.
But it wasn’t always like this. According to a paper written by Kristy Slominski, Assistant Professor of Religion, Science and Health in the Department of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Arizona, “Religious leaders within the American Social Hygiene Association steered away from STI education and toward family life education. The liberal Protestant sex educator Anna Garlin Spencer led this shift, arguing that sexuality education was intimately connected to raising morally responsible children. As a pathbreaking female minister – the first woman to be ordained in Rhode Island and a leader in social purity, suffrage and pacifism – as well as a sociology professor, Spencer believed that religious groups had an obligation to support sex education, which would strengthen the family unit as the building block of each religion and of the nation.”
Obligation to support sex education would be a nice start, but when funding for public education is consistently cut by state legislatures, students, society, and future families suffer.