Ruth Institute Blog

by Dr. Michael L. Brown

Caution: Contains descriptions that some may find offensive.

Did you hear about New York City’s comprehensive drug education program for all students in middle school and high school? The teachers inform the students that abstaining from drug use is best, but since it’s impossible to stop them from doing drugs, the teachers give out cards that list the most common drugs, explaining which are the most dangerous. They also distribute needles to kids who are involved in shooting drugs to help them avoid getting contaminated needles, thereby reducing their chances of contracting or passing on communicable diseases.

You haven’t heard about this? It sounds almost criminal to you? Well, the truth be told, I made it all up, but I did so to illustrate a point — namely, that much of the current sex-ed curricula in our schools borders on being criminal and, in many ways, it is just as irresponsible as my fictitious scenario.

Consider what’s happening in some of our nation’s schools.

In October of this year, New York City announced an aggressive, comprehensive, and quite graphic curriculum that would consist of one full semester of sex education in 6th or 7th grade (meaning, beginning with kids as young as 11) and again in 9th and 10th grade. Yet the age of consent in New York is 17.

This means that these schools (along with thousands of other schools throughout the nation) are giving children practical instructions on having sex even though it is illegal for them to do so. (If my suggested drug analogy doesn’t work for you, then think in terms of the schools teaching 12-year-olds about responsible drinking of alcohol, since later in life, it will be legal for them but to do so at their current age is currently illegal.)

It can even be argued that, on some level, these schools fail to do everything in their power to prevent statutory rape, since in New York, it is “second-degree rape for anyone age 18 or older to engage in sexual intercourse with someone under age 15,” and that is certainly what is happening with many of these kids. Either way, the activities are illicit, be they consensual acts between 13-year-olds or consensual acts between an 18-year-old and a 14-year-old.

How, then, can the schools teach anything other than abstinence? Why are they teaching our children about “safe sex”?

Keep reading.