SEX RESPECT TEACHES WHY TO SAY NO

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 16, 1993                   TAG: 9304160450
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK HOLBEN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
SEX RESPECT TEACHES WHY TO SAY NO
A COMMON-SENSE approach to sex education was presented recently by Mike Long of Project Respect. He spoke at the Roanoke County administration center about Sex Respect, an abstinence-based sex-education curriculum that focuses on teaching teens how to build self-respect, develop self-control and demonstrate responsibility as they face the pressure to be sexually active.
The program builds a dialogue between students and the instructor, rather than using a one-sided lecture approach. For example, when students are asked to define sexuality, they consider only the physical act. This program draws out other concerns, such as the emotional, mental, spiritual and social aspects of sexuality. It encourages a conversation led by the students, which helps them to convince themselves that while they are physically mature enough for sex, they can wait until they are ready in these areas as well, preferably within marriage.
Contraception is addressed in the curriculum as a means only of reducing risk, both from pregnancy and disease. While the pill can be about 99 percent effective, several factors can reduce the effectiveness rate. To reduce serious side effects, modern birth-control pills are the lowest dose possible. Dose reduction increases the probability of failure if pills are skipped or taken at intervals greater than 24 hours. And pills offer no protection against sexually transmitted diseases!
Other birth-control devices have the same drawbacks. Using any contraceptive product is therefore better suited to a monogamous, married couple - mature enough to deal with the consequences of failure.
It was curious that the local Planned Parenthood director, Kathie Haynie, tried to paint Long's presentation as using scare tactics by overstating the failure possibilities of contraceptives. She is well aware of the differences in method-and-use failure rates, and that no contraceptive other than abstinence is 100 percent effective. What is the reason to oppose Sex Respect? A loss of prestige and power, a loss of revenue from sales of birth-control pills, or the lost opportunity to continue providing their failing "how to" curriculum in the schools come to mind.
Our children have the right to know the facts and to learn to make the right decisions for themselves. Sex Respect is a curriculum that doesn't just tell students to say no, it gives them facts about why they want to say no.
A teacher present at the meeting commented that the portions of Sex Respect now in use in her classroom have been highly successful, and the vast majority of parents in attendance agreed with Long's approach. Teen-pregnancy and disease rates are out of control and it's time to change.
Roanoke County administrators should take the lead by fully adopting a program like Sex Respect in the county schools.

Mark Holben of Roanoke County is a pharmaceutical-sales representative with five years of experience selling oral contraceptives for a major manufacturer.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB