Given that North Carolina annually ranks among the 10 states with the highest teen-pregnancy rates, it is gratifying to see that the General Assembly has finally adopted a real-world approach to sex education in our public schools.
Beginning in the 2010 school year, public schools will go beyond the current "abstinence-only" curricula that have been shown to be ineffective in national studies. With the change, students will get broader, more comprehensive instruction into the biological and social elements of sexual activity and reproduction.
Since 1995, the state has maintained an abstinence-only curriculum. A provision of the law allowed districts to expand it, but the process was so difficult that fewer than a dozen did so.
Sexual abstinence is absolutely the best course for young people to take. There is no question nor debate about that. A youngster who is not engaged in sexual activity will not get pregnant or impregnate someone else. That youngster will not contract a sexually transmitted disease and will not face all of the social and psychological difficulties that often accompany premature sexual activity.
Schools are right to teach abstinence. So are parents and other community institutions, such as churches. North Carolina's problem, however, was that it relied solely on abstinence for most of its public-school children. In those critical years, from seventh to ninth grades, our children were not learning the full story about reproduction.
Some parents prefer abstinence-only education, and that is their right. But an entire society should not be constrained by those preferences.
With the new law, parents who prefer that their children not undertake the comprehensive elements of the curriculum will be able to opt out of it. They can opt out of the abstinence portion, too, if they so choose. Legislators made it very clear that they did not want to be heavy-handed with the program's expansion.
Some of North Carolina's churches were vocal in their opposition to the new law. The opt-out provision opens the doors for these churches, in conjunction with parents, to begin sexual-education programs that they think are most appropriate.
Comprehensive sex education is essential today. Young people have always been able to get bad sexual information from their friends. Today, they can get worse information from the entertainment media and off the Internet. They need a place where they can get good, objective information, and that place will be, for many of our youngsters, the public schools.
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