Public education has required all of us to listen to the dreaded “birds and the bees” speech, aka Sex Ed. Something most students may not know is that there is an actual bill for Sex Ed, explaining all the things our Sex Ed instructors must cover. To most’s surprise, the bill has a sharp focus on abstinence.

The bill not only has a focus on abstinence but abstinence outside of a “lawful marriage”. The bill specifically reads, “Abstinence from sexual intercourse outside of lawful marriage is the expected social standard for unmarried school-age persons.” The first problem with this is that in legal documents, the writers of said document should not include any personal opinions. The Sex Ed bill should be strictly educational, and scientifically true. The inclusion of a “social standard” in the context of an educational bill about Sex Ed is completely opinion-based. When Claudia Waddle, a Bob Jones junior, read this she said, “Abstinence should be taught, but not necessarily seen as the only option. Studies have shown that when abstinence is the only thing taught in an area, there are more STD’s and things that can happen from not knowing- because they just know that you‘re not supposed to do it, but they do it anyways because we’re teenagers… it happens.”

Another part of this bill that people found surprising is Title 16-40A-8. It reads “An emphasis, in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state.” The fact that they call homosexuality a “lifestyle not acceptable to the general public” and a “criminal offense” shows that this bill is not intended to educate students of ALL sexual orientations to be safe, and smart about sex. This shows that this bill was written from a narrow-minded perspective in an attempt to enforce an opinion-based view of sex on students.

The bill goes on to cover how to handle “unwanted physical and verbal sexual exploitation by other persons.” The article states to provide “information on how to cope with and rebuff unwanted physical and verbal sexual exploitation by other persons.” One who has been sexually exploited, physically or verbally, should not be expected to “rebuff.” Resources should be easily accessible to help them cope with the impact of such exploitation.

When Bob Jones junior, Ivy Broadway, explained her experience of Sex Ed at Bob Jones she said, “We talked about birth control but we didn’t talk about how or when to get it. We [basically] talked about why it is important to not have sex because of the spreading of STD’s.” Preston Adams describes the main point of their discussion as, “Abstinence, abstinence, abstinence.” Ivy and Preston both recalled not receiving any contraceptives, or even a condom while being taught about Sex Ed. Preston says his experience with the education of contraceptives, specifically condoms, in Sex Ed was that, “They talked about it, but they didn’t really say how to use it; they just said ‘yeah there’s [this] thing, figure out how to use it’.” Robin Gains, a Health teacher at Bob Jones said, “I think we do all we can in school to educate students regarding teen pregnancy and STD’s. Unfortunately, society has taken a very lazy and flippant attitude toward both, and that is part of the battle we are losing.”

The bottom line is, this bill is covering sex in a non-effective way. This bill involves one of the most important parts of the high school curriculum, yet we take it lightly and allow an opinion-based perspective to dominate the bill. Reforms and possibly a rewrite is something that we young people must push for.