Debates

This House Would Distribute Condoms in Schools (Junior)

This House Would Distribute Condoms in Schools (Junior)

Wherever the issue has emerged, whether it is in the inner city schools of America, the primary schools of Wales, or in health education programs in the developing world, the suggestion that condoms should be actively promoted as a solution to unwanted pregnancies has been controversial. This is also the case for using condoms as a method of preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the proliferation of HIV infection. Scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports the contention that condoms, when properly used, reduce the incidence of these problems. However numerous critics fear that active encouragement of condom use advances the onset of sexual activity among young people. In particular, more conservative religious traditions, as well as religious groups that oppose contraception, oppose the move to the distribution of condoms in schools out of fear that basic values of their religions might be undermined in their children.

As an alternative, critics of condom distribution advocate abstinence-only education. This variant of sex education encourages young people to abstain from sexual activity as a way to avoid pregnancy and disease. Unfortunately, such programs have had mixed or negative results. In the developed world commercial influences and social pressures contribute to defiance of abstinence. In developing countries, where cultures often encourage the development of large families and educational programs are not as well funded or comprehensive, critics feel the message lacks impact.

Because this issue has received a great deal of attention in the United States and the United Kingdom as regards implementation in public schools, the temptation is to see this topic through only that lens. However, debaters may just as easily consider broader educational programs instituted by governments to improve public health and population control. Debaters may also consider multinational and foreign aid programs designed to control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and regulate population growth—all of which could contain a condom distribution component.

Condoms are a useful preventative measure

Point

Providing condoms to students in public education programs will reduce the incidence of underage pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. If one accepts the premise that condoms are an effective means of prevention, it stands to reason that their distribution could have a significant impact.

Condoms are one of the most effective means of protecting against STIs (Sexually transmitted infections), HIV and pregnancy. For their cost, they are easily the most effective means of protecting against these threats. [1]

It is especially important that we equip schoolchildren with knowledge of how to use condoms given that rates of both teenage pregnancy and STI cases are alarmingly high in the UK (The UK has the highest number of teenage mothers in Western Europe) [2]. Something must be done to halt this trend, and it makes sense to make condoms available for use.

Counterpoint

Condom use by Children is not a sure fire way of preventing the harms Proposition have outlined. Condoms can be ineffective, leading to the spread of STIs and teenage pregnancy.

Britain does have one of the highest rates of Teenage Pregnancy in the world, yet we see that as more a reflection on the sexual permissiveness that has been accepted in schools through measures such as the distribution of condoms in schools. Surely a curriculum that advocated abstinence would be better, as it ensures that the spread of STIs is stopped and teenage pregnancy is halted as far as is practicable.

Condoms empower young girls

Point

Many young girls feel pressured into sex before they are ready. This pressure is from various sources; friends, boyfriends and the melange of mixed messages and highly sexualised role models communicated to them by the media. [3] Girls growing are encouraged to be sexual beings and may feel they have no control over their own bodies.

Giving girls condoms can do something to stop this. By educating girls about condom use, girls can be informed about what to do when they are ready and how to control and react to the pressure to have sex.

Providing access to birth control empowers women with more control over their bodies. Historically women have often suffered more because of restrictive policies related to reproduction (abortion laws, restrictions on birth control purchases[4], parental consent policies [5]). Men often do not have to face the consequences of their actions. Condom distribution encourages the responsibility of men and increases choices for women. It can also establish condom use as the norm, not something that women continually have to negotiate, often from a position of weakness.

Counterpoint

Girls who feel pressured into sex will feel even more so if given condoms to them by their teacher. Children see teachers as figures of authority, and can easily take the message that having sex so young is a good thing, causing the problems that Proposition want to prevent.

Boys can still feel free to bully girls into having sex with a condom, especially now that they have been given them by their school. Girls will not be given any extra power to say no by having a condom on their person.

Condoms have a role in sex education

Point

As highlighted earlier, Condom Distribution can counter harms such as STIs and Teenage Pregnancy. It also can provide an educational benefit. By providing teenagers with frank, straightforward information about both sex and condoms young people will be much more likely to understand when they are ready to have sex. They will also be much more confident in rejecting unwanted advances and avoiding reckless or risky sexual encounters.

This policy will reduce the harms that are associated with a lack of sex education – Not just in terms of STIs and pregnancy, but also misinformation and ignorance.

Increasing numbers of teenagers are learning about sex via inaccurate and misleading portrayals of sexual activity (lad’s mugs, porn, television and film). Better to give teenagers the full facts about sex rather than obscuring it from them, causing them to be misinformed.

Counterpoint

Education about sex simply promotes it as something pleasurable and risk-free, without fully communicating its potential to cause harm. Giving children condoms further promotes sex without full consideration for its harms. Children may get poor information about sex, but giving children condoms only exacerbates the problem. Condom distribution tells children that sex is something that should be done, obscuring the serious message at the heart of sex education. This makes attempts to cut through the cacophony of noise in popular culture that pressures children into sex more difficult.

Handing out condoms encourages early sexuality

Point

Condom Provision in Schools encourages children to be sexually active before their time. Children look up to their teachers to be authority figures and by giving them condoms; teachers implicitly allow underage sex amongst their pupils.

Providing students with condoms actually encourages the earlier onset of sexual activity. Teens who have comprehensive sexuality education can have up to a 50% higher chance of sexual activity than those who have not had the courses[6]. If young people believe they will be “safe” when using a condom they are much less likely to be deterred from engaging in dangerous and illegal behaviour.

Counterpoint

Neither of these assertions is actually true. The aim of sex education is to inform teenagers dispassionately about sex; its responsibilities, dangers and practicalities. Providing condoms to students is the morally pragmatic thing to do. Educators need not endorse sexual activity, but they are also unable to prevent naïve or determined students from experimenting with sex. However, educators can encourage students to make wise choices if they find themselves involved in some form of sexual interaction. Such an approach is wise because it accepts the inevitability that some young people, regardless of the strength of an abstinence message, will still have sex.

Handing out condoms is being insensitive towards religious students

Point

Presenting condoms to students in a publicly funded environment has the potential to offend an alienate members of a wide range of religious groups. Catholics and followers of other religions who do not believe in birth control and orthodox practitioners of a number of the world’s religions find the apparent encouragement of sexual activity an affront to their religious traditions.

It is surely best to allow parents to make decisions regarding the sexual education of their children at their own discretion. The integration of secular society and coherent religious communities rests on the state’s willingness to allow parents to educate their children in a manner consistent with their beliefs. Obliging teachers to distribute condoms to the children of Catholic or orthodox Jewish families will only undermine this objective and the secular credentials of the state education system.

Counterpoint

It should not be up to states to pander to the whims of those whose religious convictions are increasingly out of step with modern society. It would be wrong to deprive children from the benefits of an education in something that will affect them for the rest of their lives.

Putting religious parents in control of their children’s sexual education would be a recipe for disaster, placing the selfish aims of parental control (particularly in relation to young girls) ahead of making sure the child is notified and protected from the harms that come from unprotected sex.

Handing out condoms is a waste of taxpayer's money

Point

In 2002 Federal and State governments in the United States spent $653 million on contraceptive programs for teens[7]. Taxpayers should not have to support programs that they find morally objectionable, even if there seem to be pragmatic justifications for the action. Moreover, if overall sexual activity increases as the result of encouraging "safer sex", the number of people occasionally engaging in risky behaviour will increase and the risk of these problems spreading will increase with it. The increased frequency with which teenagers and young people choose to engage in sex will increase the incidence of teenage pregnancy and STI transmission. This will then offset any reduction in the numbers of teens currently falling pregnant or suffering from sex infections.

Surely it is better to put money into measures than can prevent teenage pregnancy by looking at the problems of welfare dependency, family breakdown and poor educational attainment that usually link those who have sex early. Distributing condoms facilitates early sex, only making the attendant problems worse.

Counterpoint

Providing condoms to students is a wise investment of government funds. A fortune is spent by world governments each year addressing the public health problems created by risky sexual behaviour. The cost of raising the many children created through unintended pregnancies over a lifetime can be immense. The cost of treating a patient with HIV can be enormous.

While it is also beneficial to prevent the problems outlined by Opposition, diverting spending from Condom Provision will not solve this. Opposition also grossly stereotypes the lifestyles of those who have underage sex, not all of them are from broken homes. Educating teenagers about sex will help them, no matter what background. Anyway, the cost of condom provision is very low in the grand scheme of things.

Voting Results

Bibliography

[2] Garner, Richard, ‘The Big Question: Why are teenage pregnancy rates so high, and what can be done about it?’,The Independent, 17 February 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/big-question/the-big-question-why-are-teenage-pregnancy-rates-so-high-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-1623828.html

[6] Murphy, Lynn K., ‘The Connection: Abortion, Permissive Sex Instruction, and Family Planning What the Pro-Abortion Experts Say And What the Pro-Life and other Experts Say’, November 1993, http://www.ewtn.com/library/PROLIFE/CONNECT.TXT

[7] Pardue, Melissa, Rector, Robert and Martin, Shannan, ‘Government Spends $12 on Safe Sex and Contraceptives for Every $1 Spends on Abstinence’, The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/01/government-spends-12-on-safe-sex-and-contraceptives-for-every-1-spent-on-abstinence

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