"Sexual Choice" Can Have Painful Consequnces
By: Dave Ashley

Two opposing viewpoints for teaching teens about sex in Ohio are "comprehensive" sex education, which promotes contraception, and "relationship-based sex ed," which informs students about contraception failure rates, STD symptoms and transmission, and promotes sexual abstinence to prevent teen pregnancy and STDs. Each faction fights for a stake in federal dollars as well as the majority voice in our schools.

Sex ed is "sold" to teens through our popular culture and in schools today.The main controversy is about the freedom to have sex if we want to, or "sexual choice."

As an average Joe like my average friends, I look around and see the results of our "sexual choices." A month ago, a 15-year-old girl walked up to me after an in-school presentation. She confided that she had sex with her boyfriend and the result was a miscarriage. I never thought I would have to find resources for such a young, heartbroken girl.

Now consider a male who got his girlfriend pregnant and she decided to have an abortion. Though he had received supposed "freedom" from the situation, he wept about the denied possibility of being a father.

As a "consumer" who was sold "sexual choice," I would like to let you know that premarital sex today is not the "product" it's been advertised to be.

My generation would better benefit from being taught the cost versus benefit of these life-affecting choices, rather than be subject to a political agenda that assumes that all young people will choose to have sex and all they need is contraceptive information. Knowledge of contraceptives is important, but it's more important to know that the sexual choices made today can affect young people their entire lives.

Dave Ashley is a Lakota East High School and Xavier University graduate. He is program director for Healthy Visions in Cincinnati, a nonprofit organization that offers prevention and intervention services.