TheLoop21.com

By: Keli Goff (Add to your loop)
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 09:58

Is sex education a gray or black/white area in politics?

From Rush Limbaugh to Michael Moore, painting political issues as black and white, left and right, right and wrong, and then shouting down the opposition accordingly, has become a hallmark of our political discourse. And yet I increasingly find myself gravitating toward the gray areas of American politics. The reason is simple.

I truly believe that very few issues are entirely black and white. Though politicians and the media like to revel in extreme opposing viewpoints, (whether in hopes of raising campaign cash or raising ratings), I find that it is in stripping down issues to the parts where we share some common ground, that real solutions for many of our problems can be found.

Which brings me to the issue of sexual education.

Whether discussing abortion, health care reform or welfare, those on opposing sides of each issue should be able to agree on at least one thing. If more Americans made responsible reproductive choices the debate surrounding these issues would not disappear altogether, but the issues themselves would certainly become more manageable, and therefore less divisive. But even on an issue such as this, what I consider the epitome of a political gray area, extremists are trying to hijack the conversation.

Proponents of abstinence-only education (which advocates teaching teens to abstain from sex in lieu of comprehensive sexual education including contraception information) are touting the findings of a recently published study in which abstinence only education appeared to delay the onset of sexual activity among young teens. What these same proponents conveniently overlooked is that teen pregnancy rates have been on the rise in recent years, according to both the Centers for Disease Control and the Guttmacher Institute, a rise that coincides with an increased emphasis on abstinence-only programming during the Bush administration. Coincidence?

So while teens may wait longer to have sex if they have been taught abstinence, eventually they do, and when they do, those who have not been educated about the use of contraception, get pregnant. Not exactly shocking news. What is shocking, however, is that at a time when teens are increasingly putting their futures at risk with unplanned pregnancies and the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, that anyone would prevent them from obtaining the knowledge and tools that could help protect them.

Don’t get me wrong. Of course, I believe that in an ideal world teens (and frankly all people) would have sex only when they are physically, emotionally and financially mature enough to handle the consequences. But we don’t live in an ideal world, therefore it's unconscionable to penalize teens because adults are too busy playing politics to protect them accordingly.

The Obama administration is currently working to reverse his predecessor’s programming emphasis on abstinence-only education. Because as President Obama said on the campaign trail of his own young daughters, "I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information."

So perhaps I should move sexual education from the gray column to the black/white column, politically speaking. Because protecting America’s youth, is one political issue that shouldn’t be up for debate.

Keli Goff is a political blogger for TheLoop21.com. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence (Basic Books, March 2008). She is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and previously served as an editorial contributor to RushmoreDrive.com. Keli can be seen regularly on national news programs including Anderson Cooper 360, The CBS Early Show, Lou Dobbs and BET.

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