By: Dr. Felipe Vizcarrondo
Dr. Felipe Vizcarrondo is a pediatrician member of the board of directors of the American College of Pediatricians, http://www.acpeds.org Dr. Vizcarrondo has also collaborated a lot with VHI as a researcher for medical subjects.
There are many governments and international organizations that promote a sexual “education” that consists in making contraceptives available for adolescents. Such kind of sexual “education”, which we can call hedonist, is based upon the myth that if contraceptives are available for adolescents, there will be less cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and pregnancies among adolescents. Many parents and other people that support a correct vision of human sexuality have alerted the public to this lie. But not only have them, also scientists, who have studied this problem in depth, reached to this conclusion. One of those scientists, David Paton, professor of the University of Nottingham, UK, published a research on “family planning” (contraceptive methods including the aborting ones), pregnancies and STD in adolescents in April, 2004.
The research included data from England between 1998 and 2001. Paton reached to the conclusion that the recent increase of family planning clinics availability for young people is linked to an increase in STD rates in adolescents, but not to changes in pregnancy rates in most of the groups of any age. In other words, a greater availability of contraceptives has turned to be completely useless to decrease adolescent pregnancies; on the other hand this availability has contributed to the increase in the number of STD cases in this same sector of English population. But that is not all; Paton’s research also revealed that the adverse impact in STD has significantly increased since emergency contraception (EC) has been made widely available. EC consist in taking a contraceptive pill or other drugs (like Misoprostol) or the use of intrauterine devices (IUD´s) after unprotected sexual intercourse or contraceptive failure to avoid pregnancy. Since contraceptive pills or IUD´s sometimes act preventing the implantation of a human embryo in its mother uterus, EC, at least part of the time, acts as an abortion method (3). What Paton is emphasizing here is that EC not only does not offer any protection against STD (as mistakenly believed with condoms 4), on the contrary, it seems to be linked to an increase. England is not the only European country where hedonist sexual “education” has categorically failed. Another case is Sweden, considered as the sexual liberation and hedonist sexual education paradise.
An article published on July 2002 states: In Sweden, the attitude of society towards sexual relations between adolescents is liberal and reproductive health issues (contraceptives, including aborting ones) are considered of great priority (5). The article also states: “Sexual education has been taught at schools since the 50´s. Consent age for sexual relations is 15. Abortion is legally practiced since 1975… Condoms and oral contraceptives (contraceptive pills and other contraceptive drugs) are available at low price and emergency contraception is available without prescription (5).
Those who think that a greater availability of contraceptives turns into a decrease of STD, would think that Swedish adolescents wouldn’t have that kind of problems. The already mentioned study goes on saying: pregnancy among adolescents is not common (of course, with so many abortions and abortive contraceptives available). Nevertheless, sexual and reproductive health problems are increasing among young people… abortion rate among adolescents have increased from 17 per 1000 in 1995 to 22.5 per 1000 in 2001. Chlamydia genital infections have increased from 14 000 cases in 1994 to 22 263 cases in 2001. 60% of the cases have occurred among young people specially adolescents (5). Common sense indicates that if adolescents, whose psychology in that period of their lives is so vulnerable, are offered contraceptives instead of values, most of them will choose the easy and self-destructive way of hedonism. This study confirms it. In 1999, 55% (of 17 year old adolescents of both sexes that were interviewed in a survey) had had sexual relations… The use of drugs, multiple partners and casual sexual relations were reported. Professional people working with adolescents in Sweden (teachers, health workers, etc.), agree that smoking and the use of alcohol at early ages coincide with the first sexual encounter (5). Beyond any doubt, the weakening of the moral fiber in a person leads him/her to a personal anarchy. Ethic defenses fall down before the insatiable wish for the pleasure, above all and with no limits. In fact, this article continues to inform about this problem of adolescent hedonism in Norway where the situation is not much better. In Norway, the process of admitting homosexuality in public during adolescence is linked to the increase in suicides attempts, but this problem has not been investigated in Sweden (5). In view of this terrifying scenario in Norway, it would be good that authorities in Sweden investigated this problem soon, before it happens the same thing in this country. Would European societies react (especially USA and Canada) in view of the unfortunate result of their hedonist sexual “education”?
Would they be aware that the answer to this problem is the acceptance and practice of an integral moral, which respects human dignity, marriage between a woman and a man and family? We do not know. What we do know is that if Latin America that has followed the same steps lately, do not go back to this values, the same thing is going to happen to its adolescents … and also to the rest of the society.
Notes
1. Visit VHI web site, www.vidahumana.org section “Sexual Education” in: www.vidahumana.org/vidafam/edusex/edusex_index.html
2. David Paton, Random Behavior or Rational Choice? Family Planning, Teenage Pregnancy and STI´s, April, 2004. p.2. This report can be found in electronic format PDF in the web site of “Women’s Concerned for America organization”, www.cwfa.org specifically the link: www.cwfa.org/STIRESRevised.pdf
3. Visit VHI web site, the following sections and their links: www.vidahumana.org/vidafam/anticon/anticon_index.html www.vidahumana.org/vidafam/anticon/emergencia_index.html
4. Visit VHI web site, section “AIDS” , link: www.vidahumana.org/vidafam/sida_index.html
5. K. Edgardh, “Adolescent Sexual Health in Sweden,” Sex Transm Inf, July 19, 2002, 78 352-356, sti.bmjjounals.com/cgi/content/full/78/5/352.
