CommenTerry, February 14th, 2007
The federal government is now expanding its abstinence advocacy program to target unmarried adults up to 29 years of age. The program advises individuals to abstain from sex outside of marriage to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Of course, to no one's surprise, this program is already being met with the typical jeers and ridicule from the cultural elite.
Now, whether the government should be spending tax dollars on adult-targeted programs like this is up for debate. However, many of the same people who ridicule this program see nothing wrong with the government's AIDS prevention programs, which also target adults for the purpose of preventing the spread of that particular sexually transmitted disease. But isn't abstinence the only guaranteed way to prevent STDs? If the government is going to have these kinds of programs, why not include one for abstinence? To reject abstinence as a one of many ways to prevent AIDS is like an obese person rejecting the concept of eating less, while forging ahead with other methods of losing weight.
One of the major arguments against a government-sponsored abstinence program is that it is an effort to impose religious values on the general public. Fair enough, but the people who make these complaints have no problem at all when the government pushes something that runs counter to widely held religious beliefs. This is excused, as they claim that something done to enhance public health shouldn't be hindered by concerns about offending someone's religious beliefs. Okay, but isn't the opposite also true, i.e., shouldn't something that can potentially be done to enhance public health be unhindered by worries over possibly offending non-religious people?
The other major argument against abstinence education for adults is that 90% of them are having sex anyway, so it's not realistic. But if 90% of the public were smoking, doing drugs, or eating themselves to death, would that be a valid excuse for not trying to curb those self-destructive activities? Granted, most sexual activity by adults probably isn't self-destructive, but does that mean we shouldn't make an effort to discourage the portion that is? Besides, just throwing in the towel and saying that something will never work soon becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, doesn't it?
