Ethics & Abstinence-only education

Landing across my metaphorical desk from feministing.com, a new report from The Society of Adolescent Medicine about abstinence-only education in the US. Its claim is that abstinence-only education is not only ethically wrong, it is also self-defeating. Can we take a moment to pretend to be shocked and at least make them feel better about it?

I'm happy about this! Overjoyed! Except. I have a hard time relying on a claim that things are morally wrong, even when they're using the argument to claim something I believe in. I'm far more likely to argue that something is logically inconsistent with what exists as a moral standard are reflected in law & public policy. (Ex: capital punishment. I may think it's wrong on an instinctive level, but I'll let that argument slide in favour of saying that sanctioning the state to kill people is logically inconsistent with it being illegal to kill people in the first place.) As such, I don't really know where the logical inconsistency - or in fact, the ethical argument - against abstinence-only education lies.

That said, the fact that it doesn't work, that it further ingrains patriarchal gender roles, and that demonises sex and reduces it to a part of a marriage contract, are my usual arguments.

Feeling that there probably a logic and ethics question in here somewhere, I turned to David C. Wiley, over in the Journal of School Health back in 2002 was willing to tackle the ethics involved. In his article The Ethics of Abstinence-only and Abstinence-plus Sexuality Education he defines ethics, morals, and values:

"Ethics" is a branch of philosophy deals with systematic approaches to understanding morality. Ethics includes a process by which one determines an action as moral or immoral. Generally, an act is considered "moral" if it is right or results in good being done, while an immoral act is determined to be wrong or bad. Therefore, it follows that "morality" refers to a specific situation or event that requires judgment regarding its relative "rightness" or "wrongness." The term "values" refers to estimations of worth. If an individual values one ethical principle over another, an "ethical dilemma" has been created. One's values often determine whether or not an action was moral, while the process by which the act was accomplished is judged by ethical standards.

Wiley then goes on to say:

First, is it ethical to intentionally withhold sexuality information from students? ... A better question might be asked "is it ethical to withhold contraceptive information from secondary students?" ... Second, is it ethical to present contraceptive information exclusively in terms of failure rates? Does using a negative approach (ie, failure rates) violate any ethical principles? Does using negative approaches constitute "scare tactics" methodology? Health educators sometimes use scare tactics to influence student behavior. For example, risks associated with cigarette, alcohol, and other drug use are routinely emphasized in health education lessons. Failure rates for contraceptives, when accurately presented, can be used in instruction if these rates represent factual information.

Cool Canada moment: I had sex ed part 1 [what is puberty] in the fifth grade. I had sex ed part 2 [where do babies come from] in the sixth grade. I learned how to put a condom on a cherry wood dildo in the eighth grade. No one ever said that we ought to be married when we did any of that. My poor, embarassed MRE [Moral & Religious Education] teacher even tried to include some gay male perspectives.

What Wiley notes in this passage - and a whole lot of other people have noted as well - is that the failure rate of contraceptive measures & STD protection is constantly overinflated by abstinence-only education schemes, when they mention contraception of any kind as well. Is this true? Are people that stupid? Do they outrightly lie to high school students?

Wiley again:

Third, what are the implications of educating students that the only acceptable form of sexual expression occurs in marriage? What does this approach say to gay and lesbian students forbidden by law to "marry" in a legal sense? What does this message say to those with no plans to marry, or to those who wait until later in life to marry?

Thank you Mr. Wiley for finding my logical dilema. However, to make a logical argument with this point would have to assume that queer students weren't also being pressured into becoming un-queer. No, abstinence-only education is just another example of how queer identity is oppressed in American schools.

More Wiley:

The median age at first marriage in the United States is 25.9 years for men and 24 years for women, yet 80% of college students 18 - 24 years of age have engaged in sexual intercourse. Given the high divorce rate in America, is it ethical to imply that marriage offers the only answer to sexual fulfillment and protection from the "emotional and physical problems associated with sexual activity?"

Ah, the classic "marriage solves everything!" philosophy. Ugh.

Wiley then goes on about maleficence and beneficence - the ethical principles of doing "bad" and doing "good." This is the problem with ethics; as Wiley noted in his definitions, when ethical questions arise, it is our values that help us determine the answers. I do not pretend for one moment that those who support abstinence-only education are not aware of actual statistics on sexual activity, teen pregnance, and condom use.

They have just made the choice that they place higher value on maintaining a falsely-Biblical teaching methodology than they do to actually preventing unwanted pregnancy and the spread of STD's. Ethically speaking, they are not wrong, because they are not utilitarians. If they were utlititarians, they would have to weigh the absolute value of things like back room abortions, cycles of poverty perpetuated by unwanted pregnancies, and confused, scared, and raped teenagers. If they went ahead with abstinence-only education anyway, they would be what Kant calls ethically irrational, much like the man who believes himself to be made of glass and proceeds to throw himself against walls. [Ed. This example never really made much sense to me. If you were in a position to think yourself made of glass, you're probably a mental patient. Having been a mental patient, I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that a man made of glass would throw himself against walls to try and break himself and thereby commit suicide. But you get the point]

And that's the other reason I don't argue ethics very often, because it always seems to come back to Kant. And I kan't take that any more. (ha, ha, ha, that was the worst pun ever.) But then there's this can of worms: Katha Pollitt in The Nation in 2003 in an article called Is The Pope Crazy? [Ed. Yes!] cited a Texas high school student who didn't use a condom because her boyfriend heard on the radio that they didn't work.