Jon Stewart may have retired, but at least John Oliver is
still around to tear Republicans and their policies a new one.
To watch directly on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0jQz6jqQS0
Such was the case on Sunday night when the Last Week Tonight host took aim at conservative abstinence-only programs that teach kids that sex is icky and should be feared until marriage.
As we all know, Republicans are obsessed with abstinence-only sex education. So obsessed, in fact, that they literally include funding for such programs in the federal budget, even though these programs do not work.
For instance, states with abstinence-only policies have higher teen pregnancy rates and higher rates of STDs.
And of course, young women are the ones who are most impacted by a lack of sexual education since unplanned pregnancies affect them the most.
They often end up having to stop pursuing an education which stunts their ability to get a well-paying job, which leads to needing federal or state assistance to meet the daily needs of their child and themselves.
The point of comprehensive sex education is to arm kids with knowledge and facts so that they can at least know how to protect themselves if they do decide to have sex.
“You wouldn’t accept a history class not being historically accurate. ‘Prince started the American Revolution in 1984, and his purple reign lasted until the present day. Class dismissed. Class dismissed!’”
Indeed, abstinence-only is designed to scare and misinform students, which only makes the reality of sex more confusing as they enter puberty and adulthood. The programs portray sex as gross and evil unless you’re married and fail to address contraceptives and condoms that prevent sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.
A school district in Oklahoma found out the hard way that abstinence-only sex ed doesn’t actually work to prevent kids from having sex so they dropped it in favor of a comprehensive program. Furthermore, states that have comprehensive programs such as California and Hawaii have reported falling teen pregnancy rates and lower STD rates.
Clearly, comprehensive sex education is superior to abstinence-only. It has even helped to reduce the number of abortions in states because providing information and access to contraception and condoms reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies that result from unsafe sex.
But Oliver also lamented that abstinence-only programs also don’t cover consent, which has become a major topic of discussion in the United States as rape culture continues to persist on college campuses.
Young men seem to be very confused about consent, which is why Oliver suggested the following rule that all sex ed classes should teach.
“Sex is like boxing — if one of the parties didn’t agree to participate, the other one is committing a crime.”
The simple solution to reducing teen pregnancy, STDs, and abortions is to mandate that all states enact a comprehensive sex education course in every school. The more students know how to protect themselves and be responsible, the better.
There are so many different ways that school districts teach about sex that it’s little wonder why there is confusion on the topic.
Once again, it takes a comedian to put a spotlight on an issue that needs to be addressed. Abstinence-only is a failure and is only being pushed as a concerted effort to force conservative “Christian” beliefs about sex onto school kids instead of arming them with medically accurate facts and information that really work in the real world.
It’s time for every school in America to ditch abstinence-only in favor of comprehensive sex education.
