Love, Sex, and Health
Auguste Rodin - The Kiss
Last week I ran across two statistics that indicate that the United States is dropping its guard against sexually transmitted diseases. All the political talk about sexual abstinence and emphasis on family values is producing a country with record numbers of venereal diseases. Something is not working.
For political reasons, middle school children are not getting adequate sex education. Meanwhile, television and cable channels have an increasing number of shows with sexual content, and the internet has an abundance of pornography. The result is predictable. Half of the children in the United States have lost their virginity by age 16 and many of them don't know about the risks of pregnancy or venereal diseases. The worst thing is that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that about 19 million sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were recorded in the United States during 2006, half occurring among people between the ages of 15 and 24.
Charles Koop, the Surgeon General of the United States during Ronald Reagan's presidency, made many Republicans unhappy by advocating teaching sex education in schools starting as early as the third grade, and expanding the curriculum in higher grades to teach about the use of condoms to combat the spread of AIDS. New appointees to the office of Surgeon General have kept a low profile rather than battle diseases that a large segment of the American public believe to be punishments from God for immoral people.
© Copyright - Antonio Zamora
