Comprehensive Carnal Knowledge

Advocates of abstinence education have long been suspicious of their opposite number who support “comprehensive” sex education. Earlier this summer, teenagers in Shenandoah, Iowa found out just how comprehensively the subject can be covered.

“It was horribly inappropriate,” the mother of one teen in the class, Colleen Dostal told Fox News Radio. “To do that in a mixed-gender classroom, — I truly believe it was inappropriate.”

“Dostal’s 14-year-old son was one of a handful of eighth graders in the class,” Todd Starnes reported on Fox News. “The students, she said, were given instruction on how to perform female exams and the instructor used a 3-D, anatomically correct male sex organ to explain how to use a condom.”

“But Dostal said she was most upset over the instructor simulating sexual acts using stuffed animals designed to resemble STD’s.”

“I understand it’s a state law that sex education be taught but it is also state mandated that parents be told that this is going to happen and we were not told,” Dostal said.

“It’s a political hot potato; it’s a religious hot potato; it’s a parental hot potato,” Superintendent Dick Profit told the World Herald. “It’s all of these things that cause a crack in the system between society, parents and schools, and we’re still required to do it.”

Parents around the country may see more such critters popping up in their children’s classrooms in similarly strange show and tells. The rules on federal funding of sex education are geared towards groups such as Planned Parenthood.

“The purpose of this program is to educate youth between the ages of 10 and 19 on both abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS,”  U. S. Health and Human Services Secretary Katherine Secretary Sebelius warned in a funding announcement for a contraceptive-focused block grant on Friday, July 30. “The program may not solely focus on abstinence education and states are encouraged to use curricula  approved for funding with Tier One Teen Pregnancy Prevention funds,” the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) notes.

“The President proposed $129 million for the Office of Adolescent Health’s Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Initiative in his FY 2011 budget, an increase of $19 million over the current year,” the NAEA reported on August 2, 2010.  “He did not prioritize any funds to risk avoidance, however.”

“This past Friday, HHS released two Funding Announcements impacting State sex education programs. One was for Title V Abstinence Education Funding; the other was for the new Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), which is a contraceptive-centered initiative,” Valerie Huber, executive director of the NAEA reported in a e-mail alert sent out on August 5, 2010.

The latter program came about as a result of the historic health care bill signed by President Obama earlier this year. The Affordable Care Act mandates that PREP programs:

• “Must provide medically accurate and complete contraceptive information, and inform youth about the responsibilities and consequences of being a parent, and how early pregnancy and parenthood can interfere with educational and othergoals, and the risks associated with sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.”
• “Funds must be used for a program designed to educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, and at least three adulthood preparation subjects.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.