MOTION #71: THIS HOUSE WOULD MAKE SEX EDUCATION MANDATORY IN SCHOOLS
Sex education has been
taught in schools in a range of countries around the world for nearly a century
in various forms it has become a fixture in schools in most Western countries.
The specifics of the education program vary between countries, but they all
generally deal with the basics of reproduction, physiological development,
sexual health, practice, and safety. In recent decades many countries, such as
Germany since 1992 and Sweden as far back as 1956, have made sex education a
mandatory part of schooling, a policy that has been met with extensive
criticism, particularly from religious groups. Their criticism is that sex
education is permissive toward young people’s sexual relationships and thus
morally corrosive.
Opposition also
derives from an objection to an extension of the state’s involvement into the
family and questions of sexuality. In developing countries sex education
schemes have developed in part at least to attempt to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Although some
religious groups have opposed these developments. In western nations however
sex education is not always mandatory, in
England and Wales for example parents can refuse to let their children
take part in some although not in all lessons which provide information about
sex and reproduction. Proponents of mandatory sex education highlight the
benefits it provides in delaying the age of first intercourse, preventing
sexually transmitted disease and teenage pregnancy and in providing useful
information for life regarding sexuality and sexual expression. Opponents
contend that sex education encourage early sexual relationships and the risks
which attend that and should be the
purview of parents, and that forcing it to be provided in schools undermines
trust in the education system and harms the individuals’ relationship with the
state and society.
Pros
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Cons
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Sex education provides “Immunization” against sexually
transmitted diseases and prevents unwanted pregnancy. It was said at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic
that the only vaccination against the virus was knowledge. Knowledge about
what is out there is essential to guarding the self. There are a several of
ways in which this knowledge is essential; finding out about the risks of sex
is just one, having accurate information about the pleasures as well as the
risks is another. Knowledge also prevents misinformation.
Young people must be informed about sex, how it works
and what the risks associated with it are, and how to access the risks and
the pleasures. When sex is not talked about and kept behind closed doors,
young people are forced often to grope around in the dark, so to speak. This
can result in unwanted pregnancies, and even STDs, some of which can be
permanent, a threat to fertility or even life threatening. IT leaves young people confused. The state
thus owes an obligation to its citizens to prepare them adequately for their
interactions in society, including those of a sexual nature.
A mandatory sex education regime serves as a defence
against misinformation about sex. Religious organizations, most notably in
the United States, promote abstinence by lying about the effectiveness of
contraception and about the transmission of STDs. When such activity is not
countered by a scientific explanation of sex and sexual practices a culture
of ignorance develops that can have serious negative social and health
effects on those who are misinformed. An example of the benefits of sex
education is highlighted in the case of the United States. In primarily
liberal states where sex education is mandatory, young people are
statistically more likely to be sexually active. At the same time in states
where sex education is banned or deliberately misleading, teen pregnancy
rates are much higher. Clearly the trade-off between high promiscuity rates
on the one hand and much higher rates of teen pregnancy and STDs on the other
stands in the favour of sex education.
Young people live now in a society which is very
sexualised it has been described as a carnal jungle. Adults need to offer
guidance about negotiating a way through the messages about sex which
proliferate in the mass media and consumer culture. Underlying this
discussion is controversy about what sex education should be. Sex education
has become a shorthand term for the broader subject of personal relationships
, sexual health and education about sexuality it is clear that views about
what sex education should be and what it should contain has changed
significantly over time.
High quality sex education should not only contain
factual information about the physiological issues of sexual development and
reproduction. It should also offer safe spaces for young people to consider
the social and emotional aspects of sexuality and the social and peer
pressures that arise in youth cultures.
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Sex education is not necessary to protect children from
disease and unwanted pregnancy. Young people can be informed of the dangers
of sex without sex education. Besides, if enough people are versed
extensively in sex education they should provide sufficient herd immunity
that the minority who object on ethical grounds can abstain from sex
education without negatively effecting the overall amount of safe sexual
practices in a society.
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A safe framework for understanding sexuality and sexual
identity are essential to human existence. Sex and sexual
identity is fundamental part of human life. Sexual desire, for both
procreation and recreation, forms one of the core human drives that shapes behaviour.
Young people want to explore their own, and one another’s, bodies from quite
an early age, long before they would be likely to settle down and get
married. Sex for almost everyone in Western countries is not something
exclusive to marriage, and most people have multiple sexual partners in their
lifetimes. In order to face this reality, young people must be armed with the
knowledge of what sexual intercourse entails and the pleasures and the risks
inherent in it. Sexual identity itself can be very confusing, especially for
young homosexual or transgender people who may not understand their
sexuality. A safe, objective environment in which the objective physical
facts and the emotional aspects of sexual involvement and activity is
provided is essential to facilitate
young people to come to grips with sexual identity as it is essential for full development as
a person.
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Sexual identity is confusing in any situation. It
becomes even more confusing when one is exposed to sex education and the
broad spectrum of sexual preference and practice before one is emotionally
equipped to understand and appreciate it. Understanding one’s sexual identity
is an exploration that must be pursued at one’s own pace, not at the rate
mandated from the state or school. Children mature physically and emotionally
at very different rates and mandatory sex education which offers the
information and the emotional guidance at the same rate to everyone is not
well tailored to the different development rates.
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Parents cannot be guaranteed to provide a suitable
amount of sex education. Parents have a
great deal of responsibility in raising children, but they are unsuited to
teaching about sexuality as the resulting education will not be consistent,
be biased and in some cases may not be carried out at all. Parents tend to
view their children as less sexualized; they want them to be innocent. Thus
it is often the case that parents seek to shield their children from the
realities of sex, and themselves from the young person’s developing sexuality
maintaining their innocence through enforced ignorance. This tends to be
particularly harmful to young women, as culturally boys are often expected to
be more sexually active than girls, and such activity is usually considered
appropriate for boys, while not so for girls. A double standard undoubtedly
continues to exist. It is in the
interest of the state, however, to produce well-rounded individuals who can
interact with society effectively on all levels, including the sexual level.
When parents do not provide adequate sex education, it is the state that is
forced to pick up the tab to pay for STD treatment and teen mothers. People
dropping out of school due to pregnancy, and individuals who are unable to
work due to debilitating venereal disease impose a steep cost on society. It
is thus the state’s duty to provide what parents often cannot for the sake of
society as a whole.
Leaving sex education in the hands of parents has the
further negative impact of normalizing incorrect or bigoted views regarding
sexuality. Homophobic families, for example, will not be able to provide the
necessary information to homosexual children, who will suffer not only from
lack of education, but also from a lack of sexual self-worth. Mandatory sex
education can right the wrongs of such misinformation and bias.
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Parents know their children better than anyone. They
know what s/he is like, and in what environment s/he will grow up and often
live. The state is not infallible and its decisions are not purely objective.
When children are not adequately mature for sex education, parents must have
the ability to make the decision on their behalf to withhold information that
could be potentially damaging to their future development. As to homophobic
or bigoted families, such views are considered to be socially acceptable
insofar as people have the right to express such views. This does not,
however, give parents license to abuse their children if they have
alternative sexual preferences. Sex education is not necessary to ensure
against abuse, that is the purview of law enforcement.
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Even religious and conservative communities will
benefit from mandatory sex education. Communities and
organizations that oppose sex education can actually benefit from it.
Unfortunately this is often not appreciated by the communities involved. One
argument is that shielding children from knowledge of sex and sexual practice
is disrespectful to religion. Religious and moral abstinence is defined by
the decision not to have sex, not by the absence of knowledge of the
existence of sex itself. Sex education can even be beneficial to
understanding the religious and ethical perspective toward sexuality when it
provides necessary discussion of the emotional aspects of sexuality.
Information simply allows people to make fuller, informed decisions. Sex
education does not serve to normalize sexual activity and lewd behavior, as
religious groups fear, because everything in life is already sexualized. One
need only watch a typical perfume ad on television to know that sexuality
inculcates popular culture already. Sex education would not lift the scales
from the eyes of children entirely; they already have some idea of what is
going on. The danger is when they know something about sex, but not enough to
be safe. That is why mandatory sex education is essential to people’s
wellbeing.
The research evidence from across the world is clear
that sex education holds back the age of first intercourse and most certainly
does not foster early promiscuity. The abstinence programmes that have been
developed in the united states in particular have been spectacularly
unsuccessful in reducing rates of sexual exploration and STD and unwanted
pregnancy rates. Research has made it clear which kinds of sex education are most
effective.
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Sex education does not benefit conservative communities
as sex education is not simply a provider of information. Rather, it entails
at best an acknowledgement that kids will have sex regardless of what they
are told, and at worst a positive endorsement of sexual activity. It is a
shameful abrogation of responsibility on the part of adults to essentially
allow children to make bad decisions. Sex education encourages students to
make a choice, meaning more will make the wrong one. Teaching children about
sex will necessarily make them more prone to experimentation, and will likely
cause them to view their peers in school in a sexualized context, leading to
less focus in the classroom on study, and more on sex. Conservative and
religious households have every reason to fear such developments.
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Parents do not always know best, particularly when it
comes to sex education. Parents cannot be trusted to instruct children
effectively in sex education because they themselves are often uneducated in
the matter and have personal biases regarding the subject. Often they will
not understand the finer points of contraception and STDs, things that have
each changed substantially in the past few decades, with things like the
morning after pill becoming readily available in many countries, and diseases
like Chlamydia much more prevalent in populations than they were in past
generations. Parents’ ignorance may thus misinform children to their
detriment. The parent may not understand their child best preventing their
children from ever developing a meaningful understanding of their sexuality.
Such is the problem for gay children raised in homes that say being gay is
sinful and unnatural.[3] With the only authority figure on the subject he
knows telling him he is defective, a gay child is left to suffer and wallow
in self-loathing.
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Parents should have
the final choice in sex education for their children. Parents are the ones who are responsible for their
children and they know what is best for their own. Parents are the people who
best know their children; they live with them, feed them, understand them,
and know how and when is best to broach the topic of sex with their children.
Parents are in a very real way the shapers of children’s psyche and
development, so their input on a central moral and physical issue such as
this must be respected. It is a myth that somehow parents lacks the capacity
to deal with an issue like sex. Rather, they are the best suited to it. The
fact is that children generally listen to their parents, or at least consider
seriously what they are told by them. Furthermore, parents are more capable
than teachers, in light of their intimate relationship with their children,
to discuss the emotional aspects of sex and relationships, topics that would
become jokes in the classroom and the subject of ribald humour. It is better
to leave sex education in the hands of parents who can apply the delicate
touch.
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A disagreement over sex education will not alienate
someone, whether child or parent, from the entire education system. Students
can differentiate between contentious aspects of education like sex education
and the general education over which parents, teachers, and state do not
disagree. Both parents and teachers will be able to explain the reasons for
the difference in teaching in cases where the student is taught different
things at home and in school. Saying that just because one issue is
contentious all of education is ruined is merely alarmist.
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Sex education
damages the education system. Sex education
damages the education system by confusing the children and by alienating some
parents. When children receive mixed signals from home and at school they can
suffer real confusion. When parents tell their children that the teacher is
wrong about sex, it causes the student to raise his mental defences toward
the school thereafter and become less engaged in the process of education.
Children will be told by their parents, and will thus come to believe, that
the school is promoting a liberal view that is fundamentally contrary to
their own. For example, a Muslim girl will find schooling a horrific and
alienating experience if she is forced to attend a sex education class that
conflicts with her faith as this will be clashing with what she has been
taught at home. This will alienate the parents of these children who hold the
view that discussion of sex in such a framework is morally repugnant.
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While certainly there should always be room for
self-exploration in sexuality, a set mandatory curriculum is essential to
understanding the basics of sex and offering opportunity to consider the
emotional and social aspects of it in the cultures of young people. It is
unfortunate that some students may feel unprepared to undergo sex education,
but the value of the information outweighs any potential discomfort.
Certainly there is nothing so scarring about the nature of sex that someone
who is a bit immature cannot handle with some effort. We need also to have
some confidence in the abilities and sensitivities of our teaching
professionals to be able to respond with effective sensitivity to the
different needs of their students in the classroom situation. This means that
we need properly trained teachers to be delivering sex education and teachers
themselves have asked for this to be the case.
The research evidence does make it clear that young
people are at varying stages of maturity when they are at the same
chronological age. Young men may lag behind young women and act with
considerable immaturity in sex education lessons. The effective answer to
this may be to offer single sex lessons in sex education rather than removing
the opportunity for sex education from all young people.
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Sexual development
is a process of gradual discovery and cannot be effectively taught in a
classroom. Having a one size fits all sex
education system cannot effectively deal differences within classes. Sexual
experience is a gradual process and cannot be meaningfully taught in the
structured environment of the classroom. People must discover much about
their own sexuality, through experimentation and self-exploration. By trying
to impose a strict curriculum that explains sexual processes and practices
along set guidelines, much of the opportunity for self-discovery is lost.
Furthermore, when people are forced to conform to the set sex education
program, they cannot move at their own pace. This is particularly harmful to
people who are physically or emotionally less mature than their fellow
students and who would be better served if they were allowed to pursue sexual
knowledge at their own pace. When other students are involved in the
classroom, there is necessarily a degree of peer pressure, which places a
further strain on the later bloomers of the class to conform and experiment
sexually before they are ready. Another example is the case of gay and gender
dimorphic students who will be left isolated within the class, even singled
out as different, in a way that may not be conducive toward the promotion of
understanding and acceptance. Teachers cannot cater their lessons to every
single student, and thus students with less conventional sexual preferences
and identities are left without meaningful engagement in the classroom.
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This argument is based on a particular view of the
state and its role in society.it is a view of the state which is particularly
innocent of and which fails to acknowledge the range of cultural messages
relating to society and sexuality which are broadcast hegemonically although
not entirely openly by the state. The state does have a role in sex
education. It has taken an ever more holistic view of young citizens, and
this is reflected in schools whose remit stretches not just to the academic
education of students, but to the preparation of young people for the full
spectrum of activities and responsibilities they will face in adult life.
Sexual interaction is a fundamental part of that life. Schools have evolved
far beyond the provision of skill in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and
this should be reflected in such programs as sex education. The state does
not in mandating sex education make any normative judgment regarding sexual
practices, but rather provides the necessary information and the space to
consider the emotional and social issues involved to make informed choices
about sex.
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The state has had no
historical role in sex education to no ill effect, so should it develop one
now. Sexuality should not be within the purview of the
state. The state maintains order and security and provides essential
services. Sex education does not fall within its responsibility. Sexuality is
for many people deeply personal and should be respected as such; young people
should be allowed to explore their sexuality independently and with the
guidance of family, not under the watching eye of the state. Sex education
programs reduce sexuality to biology and fail to adequately address the
emotional elements of sexuality in a way that is not seen as a joke by
often-immature students. Inevitably teachers’ personal opinions on sexuality
will bleed into their teaching, as will that of the state officials that set
the teaching standards for the subject. In this way there is always a
normative judgment in sex education that will be seen as the state mandating
certain sexual behaviour and practice. This fundamentally attacks the rights
of individuals to develop their mode of sexual expression independent of the
nanny state’s instruction and can irrevocably harm peoples’ sexual identity.
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