re: Chlamydia outbreak hits abstinence-only Texas high school

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So you don't think a parent should be able to teach their kids one of the most important lessons about life.

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When did I ever say that??? I said the schools shouldn't dump it all on the parents. I said he sounded like an idiot because he has a specific class for sex education but he dumped all the blame on the parents for not educating them.

I would love for the parents and the school to educate them. Not everyone lives in a two parent home with three kids in the suburbs so in those cases the school plays a much bigger part.

Also, I think that abstinence only sex education is impractical and its not sex education at all.

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isn't it interesting that the same folks who refuse to allow sex ed in schools, are the same ones who insist that their religion be taught in schools?

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It's also interesting that the same folks who want abstinence only sex education are the same ones that believe in a virgin birth.

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Nothing to do in west Texas except sleep around and spread viruses

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Chlamydia is a bacterial STD

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epidemic

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Who knew that 7% is an epidemic?

wtf?

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The Clap was Gonorrhea

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It isn't anymore?

just saying the Clap isnt Chlamydia like many believe.

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An abstinence-only high school in a tiny Texas town is battling a colossal chlamydia epidemic.

District officials are rethinking their approach to sex education after 20 of Crane High School’s 300 students tested positive for the sexually transmitted disease.

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Is 6.6% of a population a colossal epidemic? I don't know.(epidemiologists weigh in please)Is 93.4% disease free an unqualified failure? This statistic is meaningless unless it is compared to a similar sized school comprised of a similar student body. Otherwise you might possible see the percentages inverted. Also, the 20 may be members of a smaller population. Upper or middle or lower income? Athletes. High achieving students? Low achieving students? Raised in single parent homes? Raised in single parent homes with an awareness of the single parents sexual activities? All of these factors may play some role in a teen's decision to disregard the abstinence only message.

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It's crazy that people think abstinence only sex education can work. Teenagers are going to have sex, so they need to be educated about doing it safely. If not, well, see OP.

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If anything can be said with certainty it is that a teen who practices abstinence is almost statistically certain not to contract chlamydia or any other STDs. The issue on whether or not teens are going to adopt abstinence as a personal choice governing their sexuality is another question entirely. Assuming the 300 students are all potentially sexually active then one might make the claim the program there is nearly 94% successful.

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“We do have an abstinence curriculum, and that evidently ain’t working,” superintendent Jim Rumage told the TV station. “We need to do all we can, although it’s the parents’ responsibility to educate their kids on sexual education.”

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Though I am sure this man is reacting out of the embarrassment of being put on the spot to explain why his school's abstinence policy is "failing", he is simply wrong to point the finger at "the parents". The policy needs parents to strongly support it, understand it, teach it and live it (in the case of single parents) if it is to succeed but ultimately it needs the students to comply with it. The ultimate responsibility for having chlamydia rests with the teenagers. The factors responsible for their personal choices are manifold but it is their choices which have brought on these consequences. Not the school policy, not the parents commitment or lack thereof, but their choices. The 280, if they have not been sexually active, might take from this story that abstinence works well.

I often suspect the hostility to abstinence policies is not only because they may reflect a practical moral/ethical code that calls for self-discipline and self-denial in sexual matters which at heart are religious,(particularly Christian), but that the policy is also contrary to its critics' personal choices in sexual matters. It's not fair to impose self-discipline and self-denial on teens when one will not impose these things on themselves.

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Abstinence does work . . .

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Of course it does. The problem is that virtually no one abstains.

Those are 20 students the teachers and admins are banging. That's what makes it an epidemic.

ETA: Chlamydia is largely non-symptomatic, right? Meaning that they don't know they have it until it's too late and they've infected others or suffered long-term damage themselves, right?

That's how the neighbor's babysitter got pregnant, too.