Intelligent Design and Sex Ed
I just finished watching PBS's Nova special, "Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial." My dad had recorded the program on his DVR for me when it aired back before Thanksgiving, but it unfortunately deleted itself. Luckily, PBS is amazing and all Nova episodes are available for viewing online, for free. This particular episode is available here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/program.html . Dad had told me that PBS did an excellect job presenting the situation and summarizing the arguments of the case, and he couldn't have been more right. This episode documents the Pennsylvania court case Kitzmiller v. Dover School District, in which plaintiffs charged the school board with the intent to introduce religion into the curriculum by requiring teachers to present information about Intelligent Design as part of the evolution curriculum. The judge ruled against the ID proponents, and the case can now be used in courtrooms accross the nation as evidence that ID should never, ever be included in public science education.
By the end of the show, I started thinking about whether it might be possible to use the courts as a method of ending, once and for all, the teaching of abstinence only education. In California, students and parents don't have to worry about whether they or their offspring will be presented with scientific and comprehensive education on the subject of sexual health, but unfortunately in much of the country, and even in much of the world, that sort of education is unavailable. This is disturbing to me for many reasons, one of which I would like to illustrate with supportive evidence: abstinence-only and abstinence-only-until-marriage education is on the rise in the US, thanks to the Bush Administration's generous legal and financial support thereof, and, according to a factsheet I found here, http://www.siecus.org/pubs/fact/fact0007.html , The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy’s report titled Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy identifies successful teenage pregnancy-prevention initiatives but indicates that none are abstinence-only programs. The report indicates that evidence is not conclusive about such programs but that, thus far, the information in “not encouraging.” In fact, the report states that none of the evaluated abstinence-only programs “showed an overall positive effect on sexual behavior, nor did they affect contraceptive use among sexually active participants."
This became a reality in my life while I was taking one of my finals earlier this month when my little brother sent me a text message reading like this: Lol we just had a "love waits" assembly wanna help me make a planned parenthood poster to put up? I was at once aghast and elated; aghast that my little brother should be subjected to any sort of abstinence-only-until-marriage program, but elated that Peter should want to do something as potentially incendiary as bring a poster promoting Planned Parenthood and comprehensive sex education to his conservative and Christian-majority Texas high school. I contacted Vanessa, the amazing grassroots organizer for Planned Parenthood in San Diego, and she sent me links to all sorts of resources, including the website that provided the quote I used in the paragraph above. In the week I have left here, I intend to spend a decent amount of my time working with my little brother, and probably at least one of his friends who was similarly offended by the content of the "love waits" presentation, to prepare some sort of opposing action for Peter to take at his school.
In my dreams, this would amount to a court case on the level of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District, proving that abstinence-only sex ed is nothing more than religion in the classroom, and that not only must it be banned in school districts nationwide, but that federal dollars abroad cannot be attached to the dogma that the Bush Administration currently uses to assess foreign HIV/AIDS clinic's worthiness of receiving financial aid. In reality, it will include at least a thorough education for Peter on the realities of sexual health and sex education politics, and hopefully some sort of flyer to be distributed at school, or perhaps a voluntary screening of comprehensive sexual health videos on school campus. It mostly depends upon the limits of my bro's energy and interest in this issue, which is already greater than I had expected given that *he* suggested the Planned Parenthood-related activism with no prompting on my part... :D
But even if it doesn't happen now, with my parents and other concerned gaurdians in the area as plaintiffs against the Montgomery School District here in The Woodlands, it still *could* happen in the future, and if done right, could have results similar to those in the Kitzmiller v. Dover School District case. Legal action has long been in the toolkit of activists fighting against intelligent design, as well as those fighting for reproductive freedom and the right for a woman to choose abortion. I have yet to hear about it as a strategy for proponents of comprehensive sexual education, but I think it should be. And now, I'm excited to see everyone from VOX so I can bring this up at the first meeting. I don't know if it would even be possible to make a court case out of the issue in CA, since all districts are required by state law to teach comprehensive sex ed, but it wouldn't hurt to at least be aware of the possibity, I think.
By the end of the show, I started thinking about whether it might be possible to use the courts as a method of ending, once and for all, the teaching of abstinence only education. In California, students and parents don't have to worry about whether they or their offspring will be presented with scientific and comprehensive education on the subject of sexual health, but unfortunately in much of the country, and even in much of the world, that sort of education is unavailable. This is disturbing to me for many reasons, one of which I would like to illustrate with supportive evidence: abstinence-only and abstinence-only-until-marriage education is on the rise in the US, thanks to the Bush Administration's generous legal and financial support thereof, and, according to a factsheet I found here, http://www.siecus.org/pubs/fact/fact0007.html , The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy’s report titled Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy identifies successful teenage pregnancy-prevention initiatives but indicates that none are abstinence-only programs. The report indicates that evidence is not conclusive about such programs but that, thus far, the information in “not encouraging.” In fact, the report states that none of the evaluated abstinence-only programs “showed an overall positive effect on sexual behavior, nor did they affect contraceptive use among sexually active participants."
This became a reality in my life while I was taking one of my finals earlier this month when my little brother sent me a text message reading like this: Lol we just had a "love waits" assembly wanna help me make a planned parenthood poster to put up? I was at once aghast and elated; aghast that my little brother should be subjected to any sort of abstinence-only-until-marriage program, but elated that Peter should want to do something as potentially incendiary as bring a poster promoting Planned Parenthood and comprehensive sex education to his conservative and Christian-majority Texas high school. I contacted Vanessa, the amazing grassroots organizer for Planned Parenthood in San Diego, and she sent me links to all sorts of resources, including the website that provided the quote I used in the paragraph above. In the week I have left here, I intend to spend a decent amount of my time working with my little brother, and probably at least one of his friends who was similarly offended by the content of the "love waits" presentation, to prepare some sort of opposing action for Peter to take at his school.
In my dreams, this would amount to a court case on the level of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District, proving that abstinence-only sex ed is nothing more than religion in the classroom, and that not only must it be banned in school districts nationwide, but that federal dollars abroad cannot be attached to the dogma that the Bush Administration currently uses to assess foreign HIV/AIDS clinic's worthiness of receiving financial aid. In reality, it will include at least a thorough education for Peter on the realities of sexual health and sex education politics, and hopefully some sort of flyer to be distributed at school, or perhaps a voluntary screening of comprehensive sexual health videos on school campus. It mostly depends upon the limits of my bro's energy and interest in this issue, which is already greater than I had expected given that *he* suggested the Planned Parenthood-related activism with no prompting on my part... :D
But even if it doesn't happen now, with my parents and other concerned gaurdians in the area as plaintiffs against the Montgomery School District here in The Woodlands, it still *could* happen in the future, and if done right, could have results similar to those in the Kitzmiller v. Dover School District case. Legal action has long been in the toolkit of activists fighting against intelligent design, as well as those fighting for reproductive freedom and the right for a woman to choose abortion. I have yet to hear about it as a strategy for proponents of comprehensive sexual education, but I think it should be. And now, I'm excited to see everyone from VOX so I can bring this up at the first meeting. I don't know if it would even be possible to make a court case out of the issue in CA, since all districts are required by state law to teach comprehensive sex ed, but it wouldn't hurt to at least be aware of the possibity, I think.