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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (March 6, 1997)
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Steven Asbury MANAGING EDITOR: Thom Schoenbom NIGHT EDITOR: Thom Schoenbom EDITORIAL EDITORS: Ashley Bach & Brian Diamond editorials, letters, commentary and perspective NEWSROOM: (541)346-5511 DISPLAY ADVERTISING: (541)346-3712 BUSINESS OFFICE: (541) 346-5512 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: (541)346-4343 ,SEX, abstinence & government ■ OUR OPINION: Abstinence-only programs are unproven and fail to deal with the reality of todays teenage sexual activity * | ^here’s no getting around the fact that people are having sex. And a JL- tween teenagers outside the con fines of marriage. It’s been going on for years, and the federal government wants it to stop. Just how much is stopping young people from having sex worth to the U.S. govern ment? Apparently at least $250 million. That’s how much President Clinton an nounced he would spend on an abstinence program aimed at teenagers in an attempt to discourage premarital sex. The program was created in response to high teenage pregnancy rates that are perceived to be a major cause for young people receiving welfare. The program will exclusively promote waiting until marriage before engaging in sexual activity. Because it seeks to show sex outside of marriage as "unacceptable,” there won’t be any discussions on how to use a condom, birth control or any other form of sexual protection. It’s abstinence or nothing. It’s not hard to understand why the gov ernment would want to promote absti nence in the first place. In today’s world of STDs and teenage pregnancies, there is no doubt that the safest sex is no sex. Unfortu nately, in today’s world, expecting all teenagers to wait for marriage is unrealistic to say the least. The government estimates that 56 per cent of females and 73 percent of males have sex before they reach the age of 18. That’s the reality, and any sex education program must deal with that. People who lot of that sex is taking place be have chosen to become sexually active won’t be able to relate to a lecture on the importance of waiting for marriage. Not only will an abstinence-only program be ineffective for teenagers who are already sexually active, it may actually be detri mental. Programs that preach only abstinence and ignore the fact that teenagers are hav ing sex do not give sexually active young people the information they need on sexu al protection. If teenagers choose to have sex, we have a responsibility to give them information on how to have safe sex. An abstinence-only program would not pro vide these facts. Instead, teenagers who still decide to have sex will run an even higher risk of teenage pregnancy and STDs — the opposite effect the program is aiming for. The biggest problem with implementing a large-scale abstinence program is that there is no evidence that such a program will have any effect at all. Just because the government is spending millions of dollars promoting abstinence doesn’t mean any one will listen. There have been no conclusive studies that indicate teaching abstinence changes young people’s sexual behavior. The gov ernment seems to be under the impression that if they spend enough money on a pro gram, teens will listen. With all the factors that influence people to have sex in the first place, this kind of thinking isn’t realis tic. If promoting abstinence is a national pri ority, why not find out if these kind of pro urmio nuiuniraoura/cmeraiu grams work before dumping $250 million into them? Before implementing a nation wide program, it would help to have some evidence that the program will work. Start small. See what effect an absti nence program has at local levels first. If it can be shown to have a positive affect on the choices young people make, then con sider implementing a larger program. But to rush forward with an abstinence program without taking into consideration the reality of young people’s sexuality is a mistake. Implementing an unproven pro gram will lead to more harm than good. Even if abstinence is the goal, the absti nence-only program isn’t the solution. This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial board. LETTERS Hold corporation’s responsible Given President Frohnmayer’s role in and recent comments regarding the University’s housing officials refusal to pull Garden Burgers from the menu, it appears that he needs a lesson in the structural nature in a participatory democracy. President Frohnmayer was quoted in the Feb. 18 Emerald as stating, “if the Universi ty makes a choice for all students, it re moves the student’s own ethical responsi bility to define the situation and make choices.” The individual students, as well as the community at laige, have defined the situation and made a choice. No to exploita tion! Yes to worker rights! Yes to the Gar denBurger boycott! In a participatory democracy, individual citizens, engaged in collective action, define and shape the values and norms upon which society is based. It is the role of orga nizations in civil society, like MEChA and its supporters, to relay the collectively de fined values and norms to the institutions and the state that serves them. It is then the institution’s responsibility to O reshape its policy so that it is in agreement with the values and norms that civil society has democratically constructed, not as Frohnmayer suggests to “be politically neu tral.” Frohnmayer’s arguments are a continua tion of the dominant economic and politi cal trends that have placed corporate prof itability and the market outside of community notions of social responsibility. Frohnmayer may believe in a technocrat ic neoliberal democracy grounded on atom izing individual property rights, in effect, surrendering the ordering of community norms and values to the invisible hands of the market. But we argue that citizens must be al lowed to organize and hold their institu tions and corporations accountable to a higher level of standards. A level of stan dards that guarantees the workers’ rights to organize, protects the environment and pro motes economic and social justice for all. Eloina Gonzales Daniel Zettler CISCAP Mexico Interest Group Support human rights Beggars can’t be choosers. You’ve heard this expression before. Why someone with so little should question what is being giv en to them is incomprehensible to many of us. It is as though the “beggar” should be grateful for the charitable offering and thankful for being noticed in the first place. However, the expression mentioned above is about who has power and who doesn’t. It’s about who makes decisions and for whom. It’s about why some people are not poor and why many are (36 million as of 1995). The remarks by University President Dave Frohnmayer in the Feb. 18 Emerald re garding the push to get GardenBurger off our campus parallels the nature of power re lations implied in the above saying. That the University abstains from making decisions which students can (allegedly) make is a short-sighted remark. In fact, de cisions made by student organizations re garding curricula, faculty hiring, admis sions, housing and so forth are either overlooked by the University’s administra tion or given lip-service. What students are asking the University regarding GardenBurger boycott is nothing new. There is an entire history on this and other campuses across this country. Simi larly, what farmworkers in the state of Ore gon are asking is nothing new. Yet this Uni versity, as of now, wishes not to make a social pact that supports dignity and self-re spect, better known as human rights. The commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday brought to bear the coun try’s track record on civil rights. But how can we continue to talk about, much less struggle for, civil rights when human rights are violated right in our backyard? It is unfortunate that University’s Hous ing officials are unwilling to pull Garden Burger from its menu when veal was re moved after a compelling campaign. Human rights versus animal rights? That’s a sad commentary on our education when these two are pitted against each other. Sergio Romero GTF, Sociology
