Happy Monday! 🙂

This morning, I want to throw a thought out for consideration.

I am, personally, a huge advocate for comprehensive sex education in public school, and starting earlier than 5th or 6th grade — but I know that idea makes a lot of parents squick out. With 30 out of 50 states accepting Title V funding for abstinence education, the fact that many parents/voters seem to “want” abstinence-based (AOUM and abstinence-plus) sex education taught to their kids…though I suspect not many really know what is actually taught in abstinence-based sex ed. More importantly, I know most parents do not know what is not taught in abstinence-based sex ed. Nor do most parents know the history of AOUM sex education, much less how much of a battleground topic it is in Washington D.C.

Schools across the country, desperate for funding, accept Title V funding, even if it means they know their students do not receive complete (or even necessarily accurate) information. There are a lot of politics surrounding this topic, and the reality is that abstinence-based sex education has its roots in religious ideology, which is something I will bring up for discussion in a future entry.

For today, I want to ask this question. If all states accepted appropriate funding for ALL education, to include sex education…and if all states’ *public* schools stuck with comprehensive sex education (minus all the gender-focused religiously-rooted and shame-based loaded language), what would be the problem for *religious* parents who wanted to teach their kids –at home– what their religious beliefs are related to sex? …rather than pushing a religious ideology via sex education onto all kids, regardless of home-based religious beliefs? What would be wrong with giving the parents the choice to opt their kids out of comprehensive sex ed, if they hold such strong objections to it?

Why are we dealing with this sort of sex-negative education in the 21st century? Particularly in the face of the United States having the highest rates of unplanned pregnancy and STI transmission across the teen and young adult populations in the industrialized world?

To provide a contrast…the Netherlands has among the lowest rates of unplanned teen pregnancy and STI transmission in the world…they provide comprehensive sex education at very early ages…and there are PLENTY of religious people there. For people who truly want to reduce teen pregnancies, abortions, and STI transmission, why is the question of comprehensive sex education actually even a question at all?

Thoughts?