Editor,
In his letter published in the Daily Lobo on Tuesday, Andres Saenz argues with a previous letter writer decrying the widely-known failures of abstinence-only education but seeks to only further establish what is already obvious.
Saenz's opposition to comprehensive sex education is not based on a practical evaluation of the consequences of keeping children presumably ignorant about sex but, rather, a didactic insistence on the superiority of his own religious convictions.
He says it is a worthy pursuit to shield children from sex but proceeds to give no practical reason why this should be the case, aside from unsubstantiated claims about the number of children in foster care. The reasons he gives are moral by nature - that sex is something only to be entered into under the pain of procreation and life-long commitment.
However, neither Saenz nor anyone else has the authority to decide what is taught in school on the basis of mere moral opinion. If the statistics suggested what Saenz promotes is best for the well-being of schoolchildren, then his argument would have relevance.
However, all statistical data gathered thus far suggests that this is not the case. According to AdvocatesForYouth.org, of the 10 states practicing abstinence-only education that have data on the subject, the results have been unspectacular. Although in the short-term, abstinence-only education may affect a person's attitude toward sex, it has no effect on behavior and imparts to children a distorted perspective on the effectiveness of contraceptives.
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In addition, children forced to undergo abstinence-only education, even if they believe they should not have sex, are no more able to explain why that's the case than their comprehensively educated peers.
Saenz has a right to his moral convictions. He has a right to espouse them in a college newspaper. However, for someone lamenting another person's inability to "get your facts straight," he seems remarkably ignorant of certain relevant facts himself.
Katherine Klimt
UNM student
