Decoding Sex Education

Even bright, mature teenagers some times do things that are stupid. It's because their brain hasn't finished developing. The underdeveloped area is called the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex. It plays a critical role in decision making, problem solving and understanding future consequences of today's actions. Problem is, it won't be fully mature until they are in their 20's. They don't have the ability to see the consequences –premarital pregnancy, STDs, broken hearts and countless emotional side effects. Lack of knowledge is not the only cause of mistakes committed by human beings.

Even the sex-educated American adults are lured by promiscuity and do not follow the instructions of safe-sex. Millions of Americans have STDs including AIDS. Young women in college in the US and Canada suffer from an epidemic of depression, and even self-mutilation and suicidal thoughts and behaviour caused by sexual “freedom”. The teenagers should not be encouraged to indulge in premarital sex by sex-education.

The western countries are facing the dire consequences of sex-education. Fifteen million new cases of STDs are registered every year in US. 20 million people in US have HIV, and doctors, drug companies and corporations are making billions of dollars. Forty years ago there were two sexually transmitted infections to worry about – now there are twenty-five because self-control is replaced by promiscuity.

Sex-education in schools has aggravated the problems of STDs. It has given rise to other problems as well. Teenage pregnancy is one of the burning problems of developed countries. At least 1.25 million teenagers become pregnant each year in the 28 OECD (organization for economic co-operation and development) nations under review. Of those approximately half a million will seek an abortion and approximately three quarters of a million will become teenage mothers, according to the third Innocent Report Card published by UNICEF.

The teenage mother is more likely to dropout of school, to have no or low qualifications, to be unemployed or low-paid, to live in poor housing conditions, to suffer from depression, and to live on welfare. Similarly, the child of a teenage mother is more likely to live in poverty, to grow up without a father, to become a victim of neglect or crime, to abuse drugs and alcohol, and eventually to become a teenage parent and begin the cycle all over again. So to give sex-education to teenagers, who do not have the ability of making decisions, is to stimulate their passions.

The U.S. Government has spent upward of 1 billion dollars in the past 10 years on sex-education programmes. U.S. Govt. has now resorted to "abstinence-only" because the comprehensive sex-education and other means could not solve the problem. Why should not the Government of India learn a lesson from this and start "abstinence-only" sex-education programmes in schools?