A PREGNANT SILENCE

Let's talk about sex: The government is shoveling cash into sex education programs that teach abstinence, and nothing else. What does Judaism have to say about how we teach the naughty stuff to our kids? (Bradford R. Pilcher, August 8, 2003, Jewsweek.com)

Some $15 million in government grants were dolled out this spring, many of them to religious groups, to promote abstinence-only education. One group, Metro Atlanta Youth for Christ, received more than $360,000 to fund "Teen Moms," a program designed to pair pregnant teens with other women who will encourage them to stop having sex until they get married. The overall mission of the group: "to communicate the life-changing message of Jesus Christ to every young person."

That kind of funding, which raises the ire of critics who call it an infringement on separations between church and state, is just the tip of the iceberg. The grants, which will be followed up with more this fall, make up a fraction of the $135 million dollars the Bush administration poured into abstinence-only education in 2001. Much of the money goes to local groups such as Catholic Charities of Honolulu or the Lawndale Christian Health Center in Chicago.

Some in the Jewish community find the support for these abstinence-only programs problematic, not only because it may not work in curbing teen pregnancy or the spread of STDs, but because it may not reflect Jewish values.

On the surface, there seems little to complain about. Abstinence before marriage is the only foolproof way to prevent unwanted premarital pregnancy or avoid STDs. Jewish values certainly advocate that monogamous sex in marriage is the ideal. So why all the huff about abstinence-only programs.

Thank goodness. From the way the article sets up it seems like he's going to tell us that Judaism allows for casual sex among children, but it's really just a matter of folks not wanting sex mentioned at all. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 8, 2003 1:21 PM