{"id":271274,"date":"2022-07-03T08:44:02","date_gmt":"2022-07-03T13:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=271274"},"modified":"2022-06-30T23:17:09","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T04:17:09","slug":"pro-life-movement-counter-comprehensive-sex-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pro-life-movement-counter-comprehensive-sex-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the pro-life movement must counter pro-abortion ‘comprehensive sex education’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.<\/i><\/p>\n

I started working in the pro-life world in 1995, straight out of college with my degree in community health education. While I would not have considered myself \u201cpro-life\u201d before then, the compassionate work and practical resources of the Women\u2019s Pregnancy Center drew me to not just oppose abortion privately, but to join a powerful movement of care raising high the banner of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

The role I was hired for was a new one that grew out of the director\u2019s vision to develop a prevention outreach to the community:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cWe want to reach the girls before they need us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I jumped in applying health education strategies for planning, implementing, and evaluating an outreach program whose goal was to prevent crisis pregnancies from happening in the first place. Certainly the faith-based message of abstinence until marriage supported such an effort, but so also did the physical, emotional, and relational health needs of the young people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cDirections\u201d abstinence program went out to schools, churches, and community groups, and became a key part of the center\u2019s ministry. The prevention efforts complemented the pregnancy support and post-abortive care to provide broader answers to abortion in our community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pregnancy help centers aim to be an alternative to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, providing a compassionate response to help women and men facing an unplanned pregnancy choose life for their babies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As we are countering the pro-abortion efforts after the pregnancy begins, we need to also counter their efforts before the pregnancy even happens.<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Dallas school board approves sex ed curricula change, but it won\u2019t fix what\u2019s wrong<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of sex education<\/a> in the United States, boasting they reach 1.2 million people a year in education and outreach<\/a>. They also boast of providing \u201ccomprehensive sex education\u201d on \u201csexual behavior, including the full spectrum of ways people choose to be, or not be, sexual beings,\u201d \u201csexual orientation and gender identity,\u201d and \u201csexual health, including sexually transmitted infections, birth control, pregnancy and abortion.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to understand why Planned Parenthood would want to be out in schools and the community. If students follow their guidance towards \u201cresponsible\u201d sex, they will need their contraceptive services, and, tragically, will come to seek out their STI testing and abortion services as well. They are gaining the trust of future clients. (Some have called that \u201cgrooming<\/a>.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood partners with SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) whose branding is \u201cSex ed for social change.\u201d SIECUS’s five-part mission with sex education<\/a> is clearly stated: \u201creproductive justice, LGBTQ equality, sexual violence prevention, gender equity, and dismantling white supremacy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A third national leader in \u201ccomprehensive sex education\u201d is Advocates for Youth<\/a>. \u201cYoung people have the right to abortion care and are leading the fight to ensure everyone has access.\u201d This organization helps produce Amaze, whose cartoon-based videos target children with graphic sexual topics<\/a>. The group’s \u201cWhat is abortion?\u201d video declares \u201can abortion is a very safe medical procedure,\u201d promotes judicial bypass for parental permission, and calls pregnancy<\/a> resource centers<\/a> \u201cfake clinics that exist only to talk a person out of an abortion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Where is the pro-life counter to these lies? Where are we with <\/span>pro-life sex education<\/span><\/i>?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We must work together now more than ever to show youth and their parents the truth about abortion, and sex, and pregnancy, and contraception.<\/span><\/p>\n

The pro-life movement needs to link arms even more strongly with the abstinence (sexual risk avoidance) movement to proclaim a clear, relevant, and effective message of saving sex for its intended context of marriage. Today\u2019s young people hear so many lies from social media and their peers. We must rise up to help them avoid the risk of pregnancy, as well as sexually transmitted diseases (now at all time highs) and the emotional, mental and relational risks of sexual activity. We must rise up to show them the freedom and thriving that come, both now and in the future, when they greatly value themselves, and sex and marriage, enough to wait.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A few years ago, I wrote a program for fifth graders on puberty and adolescent development. As I explained fertilization as \u201cthe miracle of life\u201d and showed a video with ultrasound images through the nine months of pregnancy, I remember thinking to myself, \u201cThis is straight out pro-life messaging \u2014\u00a0and they don\u2019t even know it!\u201d The science<\/a> of human development is clear<\/a>. The students loved watching the growing baby, and they learned at that early age that preborn children are very much alive.<\/span><\/p>\n