Urgency of sex-ed is a myth, says Argentinean organization

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Oct 12, 2004 / 22:00 pm

The Argentinean Foundation for Woman (AFW) has released a statement it sent to the Buenos Aires legislature regarding a bill entitled, “Integral Sexual Education,” pointing out that “it is myth that sexual education is not taught in our country.”

According to the AFW, “sexual education” such as that proposed by the bill already exists, because a previous law entitled “Responsible Procreation” “has had as a consequence the increase in the rate of adolescent pregnancies.”

“And informally, the media bombards young people with explicit and stimulating information, which appears to have been compiled by the large contraceptive companies in order to push their products,” the statement reads.

“As parents and citizens,” says the AFW, “we demand the just application of the principle of subsidiarity, by which higher entities help lower entities without interfering in their internal affairs and without undermining their competence.”

“Schools should respect the rights of parents as the first educators of their children, the government should respect all institutions beginning with the family, and analogously the UN committees should respect the sovereignty and free determination of countries and not impose programs or policies on their internal affairs,” the statement adds.

The AFW also called the government’s attitude of “tearing its garments” in response to the increase in adolescent pregnancies “incongruent,” “since the government itself is complicit in not controlling the media, which exposes children to unabashed and unrestrained eroticism.”

“As an example,” cites the AFW, “we can point to the Health minister himself who invites and encourages sexual promiscuity by distributing condoms at parks on Student’s Day.”

“So-called ‘sexual education’ is the beginning of a vicious circle,” the group says.  “It talks about ‘safe sex’ while handing out condoms.  In this way sexual contact among adolescents increases—sex as a sport—and therefore, the very ones who lack maturity become enveloped in a trap, ‘un-wanted’ pregnancies increase, resulting in abortions, adolescents who abort die, and at the same time people are told that it is because of ‘illegality’ that mothers are dying, thus arriving at the proposed objective: the decriminalization of abortion as a ‘prophylactic’ measure against a ‘health emergency’.”

“It is not right to mortgage away the normal development of children for the advancement of the political agenda of a minority,’ concludes the statement.