The Blumenfeld Education Letter "My People Are Destmyed For lack Of Knowledge" HOSEA 4:6 February 1988 EDITOR: Samuel L. Blumenfeld Vol. III, No. 2 (Letter # 18) The purpose of this newsletter is to provide knowledge for parents and edul.ltors who want to save the children of Ameril.l from the destruttiv(' fOr( es that endtlllger them. Our children in the public schools are at gr.wt' risk in 4 ways: iH.<ldemicdlly, spiriluall�, morally, and physically - and only a wellvinformed public \'\-iII be able to redun' those risks. "Without vision, the people perish." The Dangerous Trends in Sex Education By Mike Arata In a 1953 presentation before a committee decide that more sex educa­ number of Pl anned Parenthood workers, tion, more contraception, and introduc­ Dr. Lena Levine sounded a clarion call tion of so-ca11 ed school-based health for American teenagers to hel p raise clinics are the solution. Planned the curtain on a drama that came to be Parenthood responds with a $1 mill ion known as the "Sexual Revolution": campaign to persuade the TV networks to lift their bans on contraceptive Our alternative solution is to be advertising. ready as educators and parents to help young people obtain sex satis­ Ho1 d on there, don't ca11 in the faction before marriage. By sanc­ arsonists to put out the fire, says tioning sex before marriage, we Rep. Dan Coats of Indiana in so many will prevent fear and guilt. We words as he presents the minority view must also relieve those who have on the Select Committee: "Progress ive 1y them of their fear and guilt over the last 25 years we have, as a feelings, and we must be ready to nation, decided that it is easier to provide young boys and girls with give children pills than to teach them the best contraception mea,sures respect for sex and marriage. Today we a va i1 ab1 e so they wi11 haVE! the are seeing the results not only in necessary means to achieve sexual increased pregnancy rates but in in­ satisfaction without having to risk creased rates of drug abuse, venerea1 possible pregnancy. We owe this to disease, suicide, and other forms of them.(1) se If-destructive behavi or," comments Mr. Coa ts • ( 2) We11, we have seen Dr. Levine' s future, and it doesn't work. Fast Approximately 10% of the unwed 15 forward to December, 1985: the House to 19 year-old girls in our country now Select Cormlittee on Children, Youth, become pregnant -- about twenty times and Families reports that there are now the rate when Planned Parenthood was 1.1 million teenage pregnancies each officially founded in 1942. Almost year, of which 430,000 end in abor­ ha If of those young girl s wi 11 abort tions. The controlling members of the their babies, often at their friendly The Blumenfeld Education Letter is published monthly. Sources of products and services described are not necessarily endorsed by this publication. They are intended to provide our readers with information on a rapidly expanding field of educational activity. Permission to quote is granted provided proper credit is given. Original material is copyrighted by Hosea Communications, Incorporated. Rate: 1 year $36.00. Subscription Address: Post Office Box 45161, Boise, Idaho 83711, Phone (208) 322-4440. _________----, .--_________ Education Letter, Pg. 2, Feb. 1988, neighborhood Planned Parenthood clinic. Dr. Richard is particularly crit­ Caring for the illegitimate children ical of scholastic sex-ed programs and who haven't been suffocated, poisoned public agencies which promote a false pickled, or dismembered by the abor: sense of security among adolescents by tionist now costs the country an sanctioning their use of contracep­ estimated $17 billion a year, a 600% tives. She points out that although increase in the last 20 years.(3) federal expenditures on so-called "fam�ly planning" and "pregnancy pre­ Even Pl anned Parenthood has hi�d to ventlOn " programs guadrupled from 1971 admit failure. The September/October to 198 1, there was a 48% increase in 1980 issue of Family Planning PerspecCi teenage pregnancies (to 1. 1 mi11 i on a tives, published by -rTanne year) and a 133% increase in the abor­ Parenthood's research arm, the Alan tion rate for girls aged 15 to 19 Guttmacher Institute, stated that "More during the same decade. She also men­ tions America's epidemic of venereal te�nagers a re usi ng contracepti ves and uSlng them more consistently than ever di sease -- wh i ch i nvo1 ves 20 mi11 ion before. Yet the number and rate of cases of venereal herpes, 5 million premarital pregnancies continues to cases of chlamydia, and thousands of rise. " Six years later, the same publi­ people dying of AIDS. cation stated that 18.4% of the young women who had relied on condoms to Dr. Richard arrives at her con­ prevent pregnancy had in fact become clusions through analysis of a large pregnant. (5) number of separate research studies. These investigations provide grounds A recently released study by for a general indictment of both teen­ age contraceptive programs and the Dr. Dinah Richard, entitled "Teenage Pregnancy and Sex Education in the sex-education curricula that are cur­ Here are Schools -- What Works and What Does Not rently found in most schools. some of the topical statements drawn Work," reaches an important sUl1l11ary from these separate reports. conclusion on the issues of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease: sex 1. Though the teenage pregnancy education without moral guidance � rate jumped from the 1960's to the harmful both for kids and for at large. 1970's. the pregnancy rate has remained society fairly steady through the 1980's. The birth rate for teens has dropped, how­ ever, due to an "epi demi c" of abor­ Editor's Note: tions. Mike Arata is an articulate, con­ 2. A sizeable percentage (28%) of servative teacher who has taught teenage pregnancies are intended rather for 18 years in the public schools than accidental. of the Cincinnati area. He has been an effective critic of the govern­ 3. Federal funding for family­ ment schools and of the N. E. A. This report on sex education was pre­ planning programs has increased, not sented on November 9, 1987 to the decreased. the problem of teenage Mariemont, Ohio, school district pregnancy. Sex Education and Substance-Abuse­ Prevention Committee. We thank Mike 4. Regul ar use of •.• contra­ ceptives has not reduced teenage for his permission to reprint the substance of this report in our pregnancies. Letter. 5. Contraceptives have not de­ creased teen abortions. L- ___---.J ____The BlUll!llfeld EdJcation Letter - PostOff ice Box 45161 - Boise. Idaho 8371L-- ---. ....-________------! Educat1011 Letter, Pg. 3, Feb. 1988,_________ 6. Contraceptive education in- Medicine and Health Services at George creases teen promiscuity. Washington University, in 1978. (9) As Dr. O'Reilly's comments regarding K-12 7. Modern sex educati on ii gnores sex-education programs are still the principles of developmental psy­ appropriate in the here and now, we may chology with regard to childrl�n and do well to examine them in greater teenagers, thereby creating psycho­ detai I: logical problems in young people. In particular, modern sex educators tend Many school systems, both public to ignore the latency period in child and private, have adopted [K-12 development. sex-education] courses. A multi­ million-dollar educational enter­ 8. Modern sex education h,as not prise is invo Ived , with cons ider­ only created problems for youn9sters, able vested interest also on the but has gone on to cause problems for part of contraceptive manufac­ the same people during their aduHhood. turers, pornographers, and such organizations as SIECUS, Interna­ 9. Modern sex education often tional Planned Parenthood, and Zero fail s to teach young people about the Population Growth •..• physically and psychologically harmful consequences of contraception and abor­ • • . they [the sex-educati on pro­ tion, or the significant likelihood of grams that are found in most developin� sexually transmitted schools] may propose and promise diseases (STD's) and cervical cancer. what they cannot deliver -- namely, value-free instruction that will 10. And once again, Dr . Richard's insure what they call "responsible" summary conclusion: Sex education is sexual behavior •••by [which] is not benefi cia I without mora I ins truc­ implied reduction of venereal dis­ tion.(7) ease, reduction of illegitimacy, and reduction of unwanted pregnan­ Special mention should be accorded cies. • . one of the reports cited by Dr. Richard. Dr. Jaqueline Kasun, an Provision of detailed sex instruc­ economist whose comments have appeared tion either in the co-educational in the Wall Street Journal, has found classroom or in-private to pre­ that those states with the highE!st per pubertal child is ill-advised and capita "birth control" expenditures potentially harmful. The profes­ have the highest rates of teenage sional reason for this fact is the pregnancy. (8) existence and importance of the latency period in human personality One of the most disturbing trends growth and development. Thi si s a in modern sex education is the movement period of varying duration, in most of explicit sex-education programs into cases covering the ages of six lower and lower grade levels . A number throu�h puberty, during which of experts on child psychology have thoug ts about sexual matters are identified the ages of 6 through minimal. The consensus reached at puberty as a latenc� period during the [1969 meet ing of the American which a child's sexua thoughts, fan­ Association of Child Psycho­ tasies, and interests are minimal and analysis] was that the child's relatively quiescent -- but a time when deve I o�ment is not served by en­ academic course instruction is ideal.