Important Voices Aren't Being Heard
Herald Editorial Staff
The Boston Herald
Friday, September 07, 2007
Somewhere along the line, the notion that adolescents should be taught the benefits of abstaining from sex became a political football. That’s in no small measure because the parties on both sides of the issue made it that way.
On the one hand, we have Planned Parenthood and the AIDS Action Committee and now, the Patrick administration, which contend that teens would not be helped - in fact, they’d be harmed - if the commonwealth accepts a $700,000 federal grant to teach public school students the benefits of abstinence.
Abstinence-only education shortchanges kids who need information about contraception and STDs, the critics argue (though it should be noted that state education guidelines require that schools teach comprehensive sex education; the abstinence program does not replace that).
Meanwhile, supporters of abstinence education have done their part to raise the political stakes. Before bolting Massachusetts, then Gov. Mitt Romney used the grant funding issue to help stake his conservative claim. And groups like the Massachusetts Catholic Conference complicate the discussion by mixing religion in with the politics of the issue. In other words, it’s yet another battle in the culture wars.
But is anyone bothering to listen to the kids?
“None of them have been in the classrooms that I have been,” said Sheldon Costa, 17, of Boston, a senior at the Boston Arts Academy, who wants Patrick to reverse his veto of the grant funding.
“They have not seen firsthand that this program does work. I know that there are many pressures on students today and honestly this program is just too important to allow politics to get in the way.”
If only the warring parties would stop screaming over each other, they might hear that Sheldon Costa and his friends have something valuable to say.