i d.r\ he Battalion/Friday, July 18, 1986
' r ' : '
Sex education promotes
awareness, not promiscuity
Since its con
ception as a solu
tion to the prob
lem of teen-age
p r egnancies,
church and par
ent groups have
been relentlessly
resisting sexual
education pro
grams in schools.
These advocates
Michelle
Rowe
of naivety say teaching children about
sex encourages promiscuity and leads to
increased teen pregnancy, abortions
and venereal disease.
Children today — by no fault of their
own — are exposed to sex more than
their parents were. Television, movies
and fashion magazines flaunt sex. Ad
vertisers sell products with sex. Sex is
everywhere.
Parents who think they can isolate
their children from these sexual influ
ences are living in a fantasy world. Pre
tending the problem doesn’t exist won’t
make it go away. The problem does ex
ist.
So let’s stop bemoaning the issue, say
ing such programs destroy family values
and moral responsibility, and do some-
thing to solve the problem.
Some Baltimore schools have taken
action. Two junior and senior high
schools, with 3,400 students in grades
seven through 12, participated in a sex
education program from 1981 to 1984.
There was a 30 percent decrease in
pregnancies among the girls who partic
ipated in the program, according to a
study of the schools. The two schools
that didn’t participate in the program
experienced a 58 percent increase in
pregnancies during the same period.
The three-year study by John Hop
kins University also shows that the sex
ually-educated girls appeared to have
postponed their first sexual encounter
and were more likely to seek birth con
trol, says Dr. Laurie Schwab Zabin, the
principle investigator in the study.
“This shows that such programs do
not encourage students to become more
sexually active but that they may actu
ally postpone sex longer,” Zabin says.
“This shows that something can be done
about the teen-age pregnancy prob
lem.”
A nurse and a social wofker educated
the students by providing in-school
counseling, information about sexuality,
and responsibilty and group dis
cussions. A nearby health clinic gave
free and confidential medical examina
tions, provided contraceptives, informa
tion, counseling and referrals when
needed as part of the program, Zabin
says.
The students used these opportuni
ties of sexual awareness and under
standing to their advantages, not for
sexual pleasure. When confronted with
the facts and the idea that they were ac
countable for their own sexual conduct,
the students embraced responsibility —
not one another.
Maintaining sexual illiteracy in the
name of traditional values won’t solve
the teen-age pregnancy problem. And
force-feeding the youth of America a
“Leave-It-T o-Beaver’’philosophy on
sexual mores won’t help those who are
already in trouble. Sexual awareness
through education, not condemnation,
is the only solution to this social crisis.
If we keep children in the dark about
sex, it will only perpetuate the existing
problem. Kids today don’t want to be
parents anymore than the kids of yester
day did. And given the opportunity to
understand the responsibilities of adul
thood, most will choose childhood, not
children.
Michelle Powe is a senior journalism
major and editor for The Battalion.
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Speak softly and carry no stick
Question:
Knock, knock,
who’s there? An
swer: It depends.
If you are knock
ing about Nicara-
g u a o r A n g o 1 a,
President Reagan
is there with the
strongest of lan
guage — every-
thing fro m
charges of official
Richard
Cohen
anti-Semitism to accusations of slave la-
But if you’re knocking about a
right-wing regime, say Chile or South
Africa, then it is fair to say that no one is
home. Come back in another adminis
tration.
according to witnesses, he was denied
treatment and died. What made the tra
gedy extraordinary was the sheer acci
dent that Rojas had once lived in Wash
ington. The Capitol noticed and the
State Department roused itself in con
demnation. Otherwise, it was just an
other day in Chile.
For both Chile and South Africa, the
Reagan administration initially trashed
Jimmy Carter’s human-rights policy and
pursued a most peculiar course. These
countries would no longer be hectored
and bullied. Quietly, reasonably, we
would work with them and encourage
them to change their ways. The upshot
was a perversion of the Teddy Roosevelt
maxim: We spoke softly and carried no
stick.
Recently, for instance, a 19-year-old
Chilean, Rodrigo Rojas, was doused
with a flammable liquid and set afire by
Chilean soldiers. Critically burned, Ro
jas was taken to a hospital where,
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Michelle Powe, Editor
Kay Mallett, Managing Editor
Loren Steffy, Opinion Page Editor
Scott Sutherland, City Editor
Ken Sury, Sports Editor
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The consequences are now plain. Al
though that policy has changed towards
both Chile and South Africa — it is now
far more condemnatory — the years of
inaction have taken their toll. The gov
ernments of those two nations were en
titled to think that the United States,
cherishing anti-communism above all
things, was more or less in their corner.
The peoples of those countries reached
the same conclusions. In both Chile and
South Africa, the prestige of the United
States has plummeted. “They think that
Reagan is the friend of their enemy,” is
the way one Chilean intellectual put it.
One could argue that the Carter ad
ministration had no success with Chile
or South Africa, either. But it was clear
that the government of the United
States and, especially, its president held
those regimes in scorn. Jimmy Carter
was not hesitant to articulate an Ameri
can ethic: We believe in democracy, in
human rights. And we were not afraid
to say so — even if it meant shouting it
from rooftops. But not the Reagan ad
ministration or the president himself.
In a speech last March enunciating
what is now called the Reagan Doctrine,
the president paid homage to the very
ethic that informed Carter’s human-
rights policy: “In this global revolution.
Mail Call
Funeral bells are ringing
EDITOR:
I sat on my typing fingers when columnist Mark Ude suggested that
AIDS victims were expendable — not really worth the tax money that real
Americans would have to spend to find a cure for their plight. I even triedto
ignore his claim that democracy is what comes out of the barrel of Cobra
Stallone’s gun. But I feel compelled to instruct him that the lines on the base
of the Statue of Liberty are not — as he alleges — those of white Anglo-Saxon j
Protestant male Emerson but Sephardic Jewish female Emma Lazarus.
I mention this to Ude for reasons other than simple historical accuracy,
though that, too, is important. For Lazarus lived in a time not unlike ourownj
Born and raised in a more liberal era, she too witnessed the surge of a
Protestant elite. 4'he “moral majority” of her times was one to whom Jews
were excludable, if not expendable. She was one of the few Jews with the
courage, skills and social contacts to fight back.
The conviction that motivated her poem, the one Ude quotes in part,was]
that a society in which the majority exercises tyranny over its minorities
cannot be a just society. It was her work with homeless refugees on Wards
Island, as well as in the causes of the minorities of which she was a member,
that led her to w'rite the words we still recite.
But until we are able to think of AIDS victims, the homeless, the accused
but not convicted, and even the foreigner in our midst, as more than just
expendable or as f actors in an economic scenario (as Ude does of AIDS
victims and illegal immigrants) then we wall have to be content to recite her
words — for we will not have celebrated them.
Finally, as for the “conservatism” whose bandwagon Ude joins but which
he seldom supports with concrete argument, I give him words of Emerson's
contemporary Henry Ward Beecher: “A conservative young man has wound I
up his life before it was unreeled. We expect old men to be conservative but
when a nation’s young men are so, its funeral bell is already rung.”
Larry Hickman
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Humanities
there can be no doubt where America
stands. The American people believe in
human rights and oppose tyranny in
whatever form, whether of the left or
the right.” The trouble is, we denounce
tyranny from the left much more en
ergetically than we do form the right.
The president’s words notwithstanding,
tyrannies on the right remain our pals.
Neither South Africa nor Chile is a
Soviet ally. There is good reason to dis
tinguish between countries that are our
friends and those that are not. But even
if the administration’s chief objective is
to keep these countries out of the Soviet
orbit and only secondarily to encourage
the growth of democracy, it ought to see
where its policies are heading. In both
countries, Reggan’s silence is taken as
consent — at best, indifference. Future
regimes, whether democratic or not,
may well turn out to be anti-American.
We will lose on all accounts.
Everyone knows where Reagan
stands when it comes to Nicaragua or
Angola. That is certainly not the case
with South Africa or Chile — despite
the best efforts of our ambassador to
Santiago. The moral outrage the presi
dent summons for tyrannies of the left
is muted when he deals with those of the
right. Instead of words from the presi
dent, we get monotone expressions of
regret from the State Department — ab
surd condemnations of violence on both
sides, as if a general strike and state-
sponsored terrorism are equivalent. The
upshot is that the very American ethic
the president mentioned in his March
speech loses its most influential voice. It
does not carry to the slums of Santiago
or the black townships of South Africa.
It hardly matters that Rodrigo Rojas
was a temporary American. What mat
ters is that he was a human being and
that he was burned to death by Chilean
soldiers. That murder, and others like it
in South Africa, are abominations and
ought to be condemmed.
Knock, knock, Mr. President. Show
us there’s someone home.
Erosion of rights in defense of freedom
EDITOR:
Once again the political foundation of this country is being eroded by
those who claim to defend it. The attack on pornography by the religious
right is more than an attack on the sanctity of the individual power of reason
it is also an attack on Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke andtht
others founded our moral philosophy.
What is their justification? That every human being is a vile, irrational
savage that has neither the courage nor the intellect to make his own choice'
Their solution? An omnipotent government (run by irrational savages) that
can decide “what goes” in his bedroom and his library.
Furthermore, they have continually claimed that the MAJORITY
(whatever that is) has the right to inflict its will on the individual. That is
NOT democracy, it is gang rule. Wasn’t that Hitler’s justification? 1 don’t
think that is what Jefferson and Locke had in mind.
These people base their attacks on fear and hatred. Hatred of anyone
who wants to be left alone to live his life as he chooses. Don’t turn your bads
and pretend this will go away, it won’t. The only way to defend your rightsis
to stand up to these people.
Stephen M. Jaeger
What about after-hours illness?
EDITOR:
I have grown accustomed to the fact that the administration of Texas
A&M has a different set of priorities than I would choose, but typically, Iletiij
go by until something happens that affects me directly. I believe that the
recent decision to stop offering 24-hour services at the A.P. Beutel Health
Center is nothing less than idiotic. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the
legal precedents, if any, that oblige a university to provide health careinanv
form to students.
Joanne Fendell
A quick fix
EDITOR:
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There seems to be little hesitation in raising tuition as a response to falling
oil prices, or other adverse economic conditions. If there is not enough
money collected from the health services fee to offer 24-hour services, thenii [
should be raised to cover the additional cost. I don’t want to seem harsh,since
the health service fee has to be the biggest bargain on campus. Not only dow
get medical care for only the additional cost of tests, but the prescriptions are
cheaper than anywhere else in Bryan-College Station.
The administration has failed to face one very important fact: most
students cannot afford health insurance. The plan offered through the
University is not very good, given the premium charged relative to what the
plan covers. Consequently, we go without. Are we expected to get sick only
during clinic hours? This both unlikely and foolish to expect.
A&M’s aspirations to being a world-class university are commendable,bin
the sincerity of such aspirations should be measured by how the studentsare
treated in the process.
pre
Ho
Jerry Cole
Chemical Engineering Graduate Student
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I have some comments about an issue mentioned in Bill Sparks’ letter of
July 8. He wrote, “I worry that people like ,..., will dictateto
women under what conditions, if any, a woman may decide to abort her
pregnancy, . . .”
Let me point out what in reality IS being aborted (it is much more thana
pregnancy):
It begins to produce blood cells after 17 days (after fertilization).
It has a heart pumping its own blood after one month.
It has a vascular system independent of its mother (the mother and
unborn child do not exchange blood).
Its brain waves can be detected after 43 days.
After eight weeks every organ, muscle, bone, nerve, etc. of a human bod'
is present and developing.
By the end of the third month it can kick legs, curl and fan its toes, make)|
fist, hend its wrist and turn its head. Amniotic fluid moves in and out of its
lungs with inhaling and exhaling respiratory motions.
Does a 12-year-old person, since he is at a higher stage of human
development, have a greater right to life than a 12-month-old? No, of course j
not. In the same way, the 12-month-old child has no greater right to life that
the 12-week-old unborn child, even though the 12-month-old is at a higher
stage of development. Unfortunately for the unborn child, the Supreme
Court has decided that it has no rights whatsoever, even that most basic riglii
to life.
Abortion is a “quick fix,” 99 percent of the time, for irresponsible sexual
activity. Unfortunately, there happens to be a living being that pays the price
and it is a very high price — the termination of life.
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves therif |
to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intfi
Each letter must be signed and must include the address and telephone number of the writer.
Copyright 1986, Washington Post Writers Group