Check out this video of Rick Perry trying to defend the Texas school policy of teaching abstinence only sex education in public schools.
This is one of the reasons why I can never vote for this guy…no matter what the facts are, he won’t change his views. It doesn’t matter that abstinence only sex education doesn’t work, to him that’s the only way to teach it. It’s not effective, but he doesn’t care. No amount of evidence will change his mind.
I don’t have an issue with trying different approaches, but once it is determined an approach doesn’t work, it’s time to try something else. If you’re not willing to look at the data and make modifications, then you’re not interested in solving the problem.
So what is his goal? To prevent teen pregnancies? To prevent the spread of STD’s? No, he either doesn’t want to ruffle the feathers of the religious voters in the state or he truly believes it’s okay to withhold vital information that can in all reality save young peoples lives.
My daughter went through the sex education program last year in middle school here in Texas. At the end of it, I asked a simple question. Did they talk to you about condoms? She said yes they did. Ok, I said, what did they tell you about them? She said “that they didn’t work”.
Wow…not that they are effective but can fail, but just that they didn’t work. Sure, condoms have a failure rate, but that failure rate is rather small and is greatly reduced when people learn how to properly use them. Condoms have been shown to be an effective way to prevent pregnancy and to prevent the spread of disease. But that’s not what they teach here in Texas. Abstinence is the rule of the land. And I guess, as Perry says, that works….well, most of the time.
If Texas was smart and paid attention to the facts, it would realize that abstinence only education isn’t the answer. If it were, Texas wouldn’t be #3 in teen pregnancies. I would prefer Texas have a comprehensive sex education program to insure out kids know the facts and how to protect themselves from what they inevitably will do at some point in their young lives. But that just makes me a godless liberal in Perry’s eyes.
So Texas will continue with a program that has failed over and over again expecting a different result in the future.