Kate Walsh speaks out on sex education

The more I hear about all this, the more I wonder why this is the responsibility of the federal government in the first place.

If it's supposed to be a free country, then why don't we accept that individuals have the freedom to make private choices that I personally wouldn't make AND deal with the consequences of those choices?

Blame it on old age, whatever, but I fail to see why many of today's societal problems are placed at the door of the White House / Capitol. You had unprotected sex? Deal with it. You took illegal drugs and neglected your education? Deal with it. You chose an unpopular lifestyle? Deal with it. Schools are for academic learning. Teach the biology behind pregnancy and STDs and, OK, throw in a bonus five minutes on what forms of "protection" are out there. The rest is up to the individual, whether they have classes on it or not.

The more we turn to the government to deal with these things, the less parents are taking the responsibility. We are even talking them into believing that they are not the right people to be sending the important messages. My vote is: stop the bleeding. Place the rights and responsibilities back with the parents. Even if a few people get screwed up as a result, a lot more people would end up better off, in my opinion.

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Ethel, I think the purpose of public education is to ensure that the majority of Americans are capable of voting and therefore being a part of preserving our democracy. The ability to read the newspaper and compute their taxes might be nice too. (How many grads can't accurately do even these basic things?)

Everything else is gravy as far as federal funding is concerned.

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"I'd like [taxes] spent on things that better my society and my country, not things that bring us down and bankrupt us."

Unfortunately, Public Education is doing just that. Every year, we throw more and more money at the problem, and every year, we graduate poorer and poorer students.

It's programs that detract from actual education, like sex ed, that are causing this. When schools decided that they, and they alone, are responsible for the moral education of our children is when things started going downhill.

And frankly, I don't see why CHILDREN have to be taught how to put on a condom. Frankly, if they can't READ the instructions themselves, they have no business putting one on... Further, the *best* and *most effective* tool against STD's and pregnancy is abstinance, but that seems to be a dirty word in today's "educational" setting.

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Personally, I would rather my tax dollars be used to teach kids how to be sexually safe and prevent problems than to pay later for welfare when ignorant and uniniformed kids give birth to unwanted babies.

Or what about the diseases they contract? They will end up with huge medical bills. Then if they can't pay they will get government assistance and/or medical costs and insurance premiums for those who can pay go up to cover the care they received. Sounds cheaper to me to just teach them how to be safe to begin with, unless of , we just throw them and their problems in the gutter as "tough luck" which some people probably wouldn't have any problems doing.

So what if a few people get screwed up, right? Those screwed up people will stay in their own self contained world and not impact on our life or society in any way, will they?

I get that a lot of people feel the government has no authority in this area. They are all about parental responsiblity. Yes, great. I am all for that, but what about the people who simply won't take responsibility and teach their kids anything? What about the ones who don't know anything themselves so can't pass on any accurate info? Do those kids deserve to walk around ignorant and at risks because they had the bad luck to be born to crappy parents? Guess some people think so.

Teaching the facts of sex and diseases some place like school insures that everyone is at least given an equal chance to receive the information. Sure, teach abstinance because it is a fact that it is 100% successful in preventing pregancy and the spread of diseases, but I don't see why the facts about sex and ways to make sex safe can't be taught as part of a biology or health class. That isn't shoving any particular set of morals on anyone, and it wouldn't really require any more funding as schools already have those kind of classes.

I don't think the government has taken away responsibility from parents. I think that because so many parents won't accept responsibility the government and schools have to step in.

For those parents who are responsible and involved, they can still teach their kids whatever they want at home. No one is telling them they can't.

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"I don't think the government has taken away responsibility from parents."

Really? Recently, California decided to enforce it's law that says that parents have no right to homeschool their children, unless they have "proper teaching credentials". Daily, schools are taking over more and more duties that fall under what used to be the umbrella of "parental responsibility" - first serving breakfast, then lunch, then deciding if and when children should learn about 'touchy' subjects like homosexuality (public schools have decided that kindergarten is the perfect time). This is just one more area where the schools have said, "You don't do it right, so we'll do it for you."

Amazing, isn't it, that if the schools just stuck to what they're *supposed* to teach - reading, math, the ability to think critically and analyze situations - they probably wouldn't *have* to teach Sex Ed, because the kids would have the tools to find out for themselves.

But no, instead, kids are passed through, grade after grade, and we have high-school "graduates" who can't read. But they sure know how to use a condom! Yay.

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(sorry, hit "submit" too soon)

... and frankly, I'm beyond sick and tired of hearing the phrase "if you don't like it, you can take your kids elsewhere", or some variation of it. Some parents CAN'T take their kids elsewhere, but still wish them to receive a quality education. Why is it that those parents shouldn't have the same voice that other parents have? Or are we not allowed dissent anymore?

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Yeah, LS, I loved the argument that someone made above that since people OBVIOUSLY won't bother / be able to READ the instructions on the condom package, we need to give them ALL the info in a school lecture / demonstration about the different types of condoms and how each of them is properly used.

If, instead, we instill in them the fear of having to be destitute should they create a baby, maybe they would be motivated to READ THE DAMN INSTRUCTIONS. And if we didn't spend all that class time on teaching the public school's perspective on non-academic matters, maybe there would be time to teach them how to READ THE DAMN INSTRUCTIONS.

When I was about 10, my mom told me about a childhood friend of hers who got pregnant. Her parents got so angry, they kicked her down the stairs and she lost the baby. I asked my mom: what would you do if I came home pregnant? Her answer: I'd kick you down the stairs. Now, I didn't really believe that, but at least I understood that having unprotected sex can lead to devastating results. That's all I needed to know. My teachers mentioned the birth control methods, but in no way implied that underage / out-of-wedlock sex was to be condoned. Never did anyone say "since I know you are going to do it anyway, here's how." In my day, some people made the mistake, but not nearly as many as do today with our more permissive attitudes being taught in school. As a result, we had a lot fewer unplanned, out-of-wedlock pregnancies and STDs to finance than we do today despite all the wonderful information and free condoms / pills that we hand out. I suspect we'd have even fewer if an out-of-wedlock pregnancy didn't amount to a meal ticket (or three).

The people I know in the younger generation who have had out-of-wedlock kids had all the information about, and access to, free or subsidized birth control, before they acted. It made no difference. They still have multiple kids whom I am feeding with my tax dollars. One in particular seems to do this because she gets positive attention vicariously through her kids. She just had #4 and who knows when #5 will arrive. I remember when they were debating whether pregnant teens should be allowed in schools, because they are arguably a bad example for the rest of the student body. Honestly, I think it's true - seeing that unintended/out-of-wedlock pregnancies actually result in better treatment than abstention probably makes it seem less scary for other teens - and hence they choose not to be as careful as they otherwise would be. I am not saying pregnant teens should be shunned, but at least we should not be condoning and even rewarding teen sex.

I absolutely don't believe that our society spends less money in the long run by feeding kids more and more sex information / contraceptives. It's a nice theory but that's not what happens in practice. If you want less taxes to go to the progeny of kids who didn't bother to be careful, push for fewer welfare benefits and higher eligibility requirements (e.g., making them ALL work to receive it). Then your taxes can actually go down! Yippee! Assuming you are a taxpayer, that is.

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