How sex ed risks girls' health

As an intern at the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, I've been working with our senior fellow, Miriam Grossman, M.D., author of the book "Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student." Dr. Grossman has garnered media attention because she exposed the fact that health educators often risk students' well-being to promote a particular ideology – usually a combination of feminism, androgyny and "anything goes" liberalism.

In the upside-down world of politically correct health care, the main priority is to never make "moral judgments" about a patient's behavior, and factual information is suppressed if it threatens political agendas.

I've been researching sex education and sexual health care for Dr. Grossman's upcoming columns. I've browsed health websites, "sex ed" manuals, even teen magazines like CosmoGIRL and Seventeen. Although much of the health information is politicized, the advice offered to young girls on sexual decision-making is downright scandalous.

"There is no right time to have your first intercourse. This is a choice you make," declares GoAskAlice.com, a popular health website. This canard is repeated ad nauseam in sex education programs and magazines geared toward middle and high school students, such as Seventeen. (Don't let the name fool you – most of its readership is under 16.)

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"There is no correct age at which you are 'supposed' to have sex," declares the health website coolnurse.com. "Everyone has to make a very personal decision about what is right for them."

Really? What if a girl decides sex is right for her at age 12 or 13?

This is what happens when adults are unable – or unwilling – to impose any standards for how kids should behave. Instructing girls as young as 10 to make their own decisions about sex is medically irresponsible and a direct threat to their health.

One fact absent from most sex education programs is that young girls are more susceptible to STDs than mature women. They don't include information about the cervical transformation zone (or T-Zone), a ring of cells that is vulnerable to infection. The transformation zone is dramatically larger in a teenage girl, but shrinks as she gets older. (Detailed information about the T-Zone is available in Dr. Grossman's book.) I didn't find a single mention of the T-Zone in any of the comprehensive sex education guides I reviewed. How many girls have been put at risk for STDs because they believe sex is "safe" as long as they use condoms and feel ready?

Also, on a strictly neurological level, kids are not able to make a mature decision to have sex. In adolescents, the areas of the brain responsible for impulse control and accurate risk assessment are not fully developed – and won't be until their late teens or early 20s. Adults acknowledge this medical fact when debating other issues affecting kids. For example, teens' limited capacity for risk assessment is often cited as a reason to restrict driving privileges until age 17 or 18. If we think high school sophomores are too immature to understand the risks of reckless driving, why do we think eighth-graders are able to understand the possible consequences of sexual activity?

Oh, now I remember: Telling a 14-year-old girl she's too young to have sex would be making a moral judgment. The correct response is to hand her a condom and applaud her for making a "personal decision" about whether she is "ready."

It is negligent to instruct teens to make choices based on fleeting feelings of "readiness," since studies show that early sexual debut is usually a regretted decision. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 72 percent of girls and 55 percent of boys say they wish they had waited longer to have sex. The younger a girl is when she loses her virginity, the more likely she is to regret that decision later.

Interestingly, the same survey found that 78 percent of all respondents believed that teens shouldn't have sex at all – probably because they were the first generation to have the "have sex as soon as you're ready" mantra foisted on them and have suffered the consequences. While it is nearly impossible to find a woman who abstained from sex and regrets not starting young and having multiple partners, I challenge anyone reading this to find even one girl who had sex at 12, 13 or 14 and believes it was a good decision.

Before writing this column, I asked several of my friends their opinions on sex education. One, a self-described liberal feminist, told me, "I'm all for teaching kids about condoms, but I don't think we should be telling emotionally immature kids to have sex based on feelings."

Sex educators like the idea of telling teens to have sex as soon as they feel ready not because it's good for them, but because they see it as the values-neutral position. They don't particularly care about teens – especially girls, who are more likely to suffer physical and emotional consequences from early sexual activity. They care about undermining traditional values and promoting libertine attitudes about sex.

Luckily, people like Dr. Grossman are advocating for agenda-free, truly comprehensive sexual education. I encourage parents, teachers and anyone else who is concerned about young people's health to pick up a copy of "Unprotected" or visit her website, MiriamGrossmanMD.com.

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Ashley Herzog is a senior journalism major at Ohio University and an intern at the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.