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Friday, February 27, 2009

Society and values: Forget teaching about right and wrong where sex is concerned?

From Britain's Sunday Times (February 22, 2009), we learn
Parents told: avoid morality in sex lessons

Jack Grimston

PARENTS should avoid trying to convince their teenage children of the difference between right and wrong when talking to them about sex, a new government leaflet is to advise.

Instead, any discussion of values should be kept “light” to encourage teenagers to form their own views, according to the brochure, which one critic has called “amoral.”
Well, such a view is amoral by definition, so the critic is redundantly stating a fact.

But several questions come immediately to mind:

- Was the doctor who implanted at least eight embryos in the "octomom" harming children by causing them to be born in dangerous circumstances? Or was that just a commercial transaction?
- What about people who claim to be sterile or using contraceptives, who in fact aren't? Or commit paternity fraud?

- What about the people who don't disclose sexually transmissible diseases to potential sex partners?

Of course teens differ with their parents about when, how, and with whom it is right to have sex, but I see no good coming from avoiding "the difference between right and wrong" in discussing the question.

It's all the difference in the world, actually.

Are the people who think avoidance is a good idea prepared to accept responsibility for all the consequences?


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