Tuesday, January 7,1997
CONDOM DISTRIBUTION IN SCHOOLS CONDONES
PROMISCUITY AND INCREASES TEEN PREGNANCIES
A majority of high schools in the United States do not distribute condoms to students.
Those few schools that do provide condoms state their reason that in doing so, they will safely
decrease the number of teen pregnancies and cases of sexually transmitted diseases. But if
students are exposed to condom distribution, they will get the idea that premarital sex is okay,
and will do it without consideration. Statistics showing the condom failure rate turn the belief of
reducing teen pregnancies around. Distributing condoms in schools condones promiscuity and
increases teen pregnancies.
Condoms were invented to provide a barrier for protection against pregnancy and
sexually transmitted diseases. Since then, other forms of birth control have been introduced and
proven more reliable than condoms. Depo-Provera, "The Pill", and Norplant are such methods.
Every day, sex education classes promote condoms as means of safe sex or a least safer sex.
Condom in the shape of an AIDS ribbon. AIDS awaren...
English: A poster promoting the U.S. military's WW...
Condom coutureBut
research on condoms provides no such guarantee. Texas researcher Susan Weller reports that
condoms are only 87 percent effective in preventing pregnancy. Condoms do appear to be
effective in preventing pregnancy when used "correctly and consistently". Most individuals,
however, do not use them "correctly and consistently". In a municipal hospital family planning
clinic, 36 percent of 106 people experienced condom breakage, and five percent of the women's
unplanned pregnancies were attributed to broken condoms. A high school student cannot afford
the risk of becoming pregnant.
The Catholic Church states that sex exists for means of expressing love between two
people and creation only, and frowns upon premarital sex or sexual intercourse without using a
contraceptives. Catholic values state that abstinence should be practived and is the safest
method of birth control there is.
Sexual promiscuity should not be...