Some public school students in Texas may get to learn a little more about the birds and the bees. It’s hard to dispute the facts of an abstinence-only sex education program: Don’t have sex and you won’t get pregnant. Don’t have sex and you won’t get a sexually transmitted disease. This kind of sex education program is taught in 96 percent of Texas classrooms, according to the
Texas Freedom Network. Despite standing on this moral high ground and their best efforts, schools districts around the state appear to be realizing that--shock and amazement--teens will still have sex. The state's lackluster record helps prove that. Texas ranks fifth in the country for teen pregnancy, third in young people with AIDS and fourth in terms of syphilis among teens, according to
the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. The Texas Tribune
reports that several districts, including those in Midland, Austin, Corpus Christi, San Antonio and Plano, are employing or exploring "abstinence-plus" models, which encourage students to abstain but also teach about birth control methods and condoms. Susan Tortolero, the director of the University of Texas' Prevention Research Center in Houston, told the Tribune that research shows that teaching kids about birth control can delay sexual initiation. Tortolero, who helped develop a new Midland program, notes that "kids aren't getting aroused when they see a condom." The article also notes that Obama administration gives grants to districts that focus on "evidence-based" teenage pregnancy prevention, while the Bush administration had designated federal grants for abstinence-only programs. The movement could be slow-moving as more comprehensive sex education models still face conservative attitudes that believe more information would encourage teenagers to have sex. The Tribune quoted one such advocate for abstinence-only programs, Ed Ainsworth, a Lubbock pastor: "Will a condom protect your heart? As a female, will a condom protect your reputation?" he asked. During the 2010 elections, Gov. Rick Perry, when questioned about the state's unimpressive sexual health statistics,
gave his own insight into the way he views sex education. "Abstinence works," Perry said, noting his own personal experience, without providing further detail on what those experiences might be. He declined, however, to offer a statistic to prove such a claim when asked to produce one. [
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