Mary S. McLellan, MS, SRAS ~ Sexual Risk Avoidance Specialist
Robert Swain MS HIA
Health experts in South Carolina (SC) are finally showing concern about the high rates of STDs/HIV among teens. According to GoUpstate.com,
In one-year, the rate of HIV/AIDS jumped 11% among 15-19 year olds.
And, SC ranks in the top ten states for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and HIV/AIDS.
This data is surprising since HIV/AIDS rates are generally reported as declining. What are we to think?
Regardless of its validity, you should know that the “health experts” mentioned in this article are members of the National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education, a coalition run by SIECUS, which is a spin-off of Planned Parenthood. They are in league with over three hundred national Sexperts who promote Sexual Rights in our schools under the guise of Comprehensive Sexuality Education. (CSE).
Teaching students to delay sex until their brains are mature and they are self-sufficient adults is the best sexual health message, regardless of their sexual history or sexual orientation. However, that is not a Sexpert’s primary goal. Delaying sex just does not fit the Sexual Rights narrative, nor the sex industries’ lucrative business model. They want to get kids hooked on sex at an early age so that they become lifelong customers.
Sexual Rights advocates cannot admit that CSE or ‘contraception-only sex ed’ fails to protect our children from the consequences of sex, mainly STDs/HIV. Rather, they shift the blame to a lack of “access to health care services and affordability of health care services.” Really? Using vulnerable minors to politicize the STD/HIV crisis in SC is absolutely shameless. And for what? More condom distribution centers!
The problem is not health services; it is CSE in our schools. CSE is neither comprehensive nor educational. It is Sexual Rights indoctrination that normalizes and promotes sexual activity for minors. Students are legal minors and cannot consent to sex, so why are adults teaching them how to have sex?
Besides, many SC high school students are not even using condoms. GoUpstate.com reports that, “Only 59 percent of [sexually active] high school students report (2015) using a condom the last time they had sex.” This data does not even factor whether the condoms were used correctly or consistently.
If 59 percent were the only relative data point, this might sounds OK. But, the report neglects to inform us that condom use in SC peaked in 2005 at 67 percent and it has been in decline ever since! Most of this decline occurred during the Obama years when sexually explicit, pornographic, CSE programs began receiving more than 90 percent of all federal sex ed funding. Teaching kids the pleasures of sex and expecting them to care about their future health is ludicrous.
And, for those 41 percent that used a condom the last time they had sex, condoms are not protective enough. Exaggerating condom effectiveness or allowing students to believe that condoms will protect them from STDs is deceitful. Such medically inaccurate information gives students false assurance that they are protected and it encourages them to take more risks.
In addition to failed condom education, we reported last fall that a U.S. Health and Human Services replication study of “evidence-based” CSE programs reveals that most were ineffective. The full review is in the American Journal of Public Health (October 2016). One of their conclusions was,
Valerie Huber, Founder/CEO of WeAscend.org, a national Sexual Risk Avoidance (SRA) policy organization, nailed it in her summary of the findings:
Those ignoring the devastating results of CSE programs are not competent to teach our children. To date, none of the failed CSE programs have been pulled from SC schools. Parents and taxpayers must demand that they be removed and replaced with proven-effective Sexual Risk Avoidance programs.
If CSE programs were seat belts, they would have been recalled years ago!
