Ah, children! The joy of every parent’s life; the happiness they bring to grandparents. We all want our children to grow up safe, healthy, and loved. To accomplish this, we teach them from a very early age to eat well, dress warmly, and wear their seat belts. Our physicians inoculate and vaccinate them, and attend to their various illnesses. As they progress through school, our educators add to the wealth of information that can assist our children to lead happy, productive, and healthy lives.
Unfortunately, there is also pressure to ignore what the parents, doctors, and teachers advise. Peer pressure can lead children into gangs, drugs, alcohol, and sex. As parents, we don’t want this to happen, and we try to educate our children to avoid risky behavior. We rely on the schools to re-enforce the principals we stress repeatedly to our youth.
Why then, would the Canyons School District in Utah physically remove pages 398-417 from the brand new health textbooks for its five high schools? (Rolly, Tribune)
Brand new textbooks, costing $76.19 each, had pages cut out of them by the school administration. Why?
Could it be because our legislature is afraid to have our children taught about sex? They think that if we teach children about sex, they will run out and start copulating like rabbits. Perhaps it is time to send our legislators back to school, to teach them some facts, some reality. Here’s what they need to learn: Utah teenagers and young adults are having sex now, without enough knowledge of how to protect themselves from unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. And that, my dear readers, is not good.
Utah had a teenage pregnancy rate in 2011 of 23.1 per 1,000 women. The national average that same year was 31.3 per 1000, so we are doing better than some states, but not as well as others. However, the pregnancy rate is only part of the problem. What life-changes occur when teenage girls become pregnant? Here are some scary national statistics: 79% of teenagers who become pregnant are unmarried; 34 % of sexually active teenagers have at least one pregnancy before age 20, and 80% of teen mothers end up on welfare, for at least some period.
Utah has some scary statistics of its own to worry about, and they are not just about becoming pregnant. There are four major sexually transmitted diseases, and Utah has its share of them. The data here is all from 2011, and all supplied by the CDC. (The links are at the end of this article.) When I use the term population, I am referring to the 15-24 age groups, not the entire population.
Chlamydia, the so-called silent epidemic, is the most common STD in Utah; it was diagnosed in 4740 teenagers in 2011. That is a rate of 1059 for every 100,000 teenagers/young adults. The second most prevalent STD in Utah is gonorrhea, in 2011 there were 119 new cases confirmed in the 15-24 age grouping. The rate for gonorrhea was 26.6 per 100,000 of our teenage/young adult population. Next on the list is syphilis, which was diagnosed in two cases in 2011, for the same population, this puts it at .4 for every 100,000 young adults. Are you concerned about our children’s health yet?
You should be very concerned, in fact we all should be. Here is a statistic that should really frighten you. In 2011, 81 new cases of HIV infection were reported in our target group; and, even more frightening, 2091 of our 13-24 teenagers/young adults were living with the HIV infection.
Let’s do some simple math: in 2011, 5,377 unmarried teenagers/young adults gave birth (23 were under 15!); 4,740 teenagers/young adults were diagnosed with Chlamydia; 119 with gonorrhea, 2 with syphilis, and 2172 had the HIV infection.
Twelve thousand, four hundred and ten of our teenagers/young adults had their lives dramatically changed. 12,410 lives negatively affected in 2011 alone. So why do I want the legislature to go back to school?
The laws in Utah, created by our head in the sand legislature, do not allow discussion, by the teacher or in the textbook, about contraception, STD’s, sexual arousal, masturbation or alternative life-styles. Our legislature believes that teaching about sex in school may violate a parent’s right to control what information (about sex) their children receive. Remember, we are talking about high school students here, students that regularly use the internet, with wireless devices that connect them to the internet 24/7/365, provided by the parents. Well, mom, dad, and legislature, here is a news flash for you. Johnny and Sally are having sex, whether you like it or not. You don’t want to think Utah’s children are in any way sexually active, but that is obviously incorrect. You want to believe that if we raise our children in good homes, and don’t tell them about sex, they won’t get curious, they won’t experiment. Sadly, that is not reality, that is not what the data shows. That is the reason, however, why Canyons School District cut the pages out of 315 textbooks. (Canyons had originally ordered textbooks for 3000 students, so they have now gone back to the publisher to have the textbooks re-created without the offending sections.) It is ridiculous, it is wrong, and it is unfair to our children. It also means that there will not be new health books for the high school students until the next school year.
This legislative session in Utah, the legislators will consider SB31, which will raise the legal age to buy tobacco products in Utah from 19 to 21. The senator proposing this law says that this will prevent 4,740 teenagers/young adults from smoking. That is a good, albeit questionable motive. (If you are old enough to die for your country, I think you are mature enough to decide if you want to smoke.) If the good senator is concerned about the health of our young adults, should not the health of 12,410 teenagers/young adults be a greater concern than that of 4,740?
There are ways to reduce teen pregnancy and STD transmission; they include education at home and at school, availability of effective birth control, and good parenting/mentoring. The CDC has a program to reduce teen the number of pregnancies, here is one of the components that bears strongly on this discussion:
“Providing teens with evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs, including youth development and curriculum-based programs that reduce teen pregnancy and associated risk factors.”
Twelve thousand, four hundred and ten of our teenagers/young adults had their health, and their lives, put at risk due to our state-sponsored policy of “Don’t Tell.” It’s time to change that policy, and educate our children.
Thanks for reading my thoughts. Please feel free to add your comments, just click on the pencil to open the comment box!
Paul Rolly’s Tribune article is here: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57506243-90/district-books-sexual-policy.html.csp
Utah birth rates are here: http://health.utah.gov/vitalrecords/2011bx_UpdatedFinal_03292013.pdf
CDC Statistics are here: http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/by-age/15-24-all-STDs/state/2011/UT11.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pdf/HSSR_MSA_2013-PDF04.pdf
CDC program to reduce teen pregnancy: http://www.cdc.gov/TeenPregnancy/PreventTeenPreg.htm
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