State-mandated classes versus parental rights

State-mandated classes versus parental rights
"Does Sex Ed Undermine Parental Rights?," The New York Times. October 18, 2011--IMAGINE you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members? That prospect would horrify most parents. But such lessons are part of a middle-school curriculum that Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City schools chancellor, has recommended for his system’s newly mandated sex-education classes. There is a parental “opt out,” but it is very limited, covering classes on contraception and birth control.

Observers can quarrel about the extent to which what is being mandated is an effect, or a contributing cause, of the sexualization of children in our society at younger ages. But no one can plausibly claim that teaching middle-schoolers about mutual masturbation is “neutral” between competing views of morality; the idea of “value free” sex education was exploded as a myth long ago. The effect of such lessons is as much to promote a certain sexual ideology among the young as it is to protect their health. But beyond rival moral visions, the new policy raises a deeper issue: Should the government force parents — at least those not rich enough to afford private schools — to send their children to classes that may contradict their moral and religious values on matters of intimacy and personal conduct?

Liberals and conservatives alike should say no. Such policies violate parents’ rights, whether they are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or of no religion at all. To see why, we need to think carefully about the parent-child relationship that gives rise to the duties that parental rights serve and protect. Parenting, especially in moral and religious matters, is very important and highly personal: while parents enlist others’ help in this task, the task is theirs. They are ultimately responsible for their children’s intellectual and moral maturity, so within broad limits they must be free to educate their children, especially on the deepest matters, as they judge best. This is why parental rights are so important: they provide a zone of sovereignty, a moral space to fulfill their obligations according to their consciences.

True, the state needs to protect children from abuse and neglect. It is also true that the state has a legitimate interest in reducing teenage pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. But it is not abuse or neglect to protect the innocence of preteenage children or to teach one’s children more conservative, as opposed to more liberal, moral values. Nor is it wrong or unreasonable to limit the state’s control over what one’s children learn and think about sensitive issues of morality. On the contrary, that is just what is required if parents are to fulfill their duties and exercise their legitimate rights. Unless a broader parental opt out is added, New York City’s new policies will continue to usurp parents’ just (and constitutionally recognized) authority. Turning a classroom into a mandatory catechism lesson for a contested ideology is a serious violation of parental rights, and citizens of every ideological hue should stand up and oppose it.

Founder and Chairman of The Medical Institute for Sexual Health Joe McIlhaney, MD: "Teaching middle-schoolers about mutual masturbation or about masturbation of any type and teaching them about a variety of other solitary and mutual sex acts is unhealthy enough. Teaching them to ignore parental teaching about sex and to trust only the school is even more unhealthy. Ignoring for a moment the sexual issue, remember that parents are with the children day after day until they leave home. It is the parents' responsibility to teach their children how to eat in a healthy way, how to drive the car without speeding or running red lights and on and on. If the schools undermine in the children’s minds the wisdom of their parents about sex, why should the children not also question their parents wisdom about a host of other warnings they have been given at home? And besides, the children do not belong to the school, they belong to the parents to raise. For these and many other reasons, invalidating parental authority in the lives of children is the worst part of the middle-school sex-ed curriculum advocated by Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City school's chancellor.

"Giving children as young as 10 and 11 'risk cards' that graphically name a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts, ostensibly to warn them about sexually transmitted disease (STI), is almost as inane and destructive. Teaching kids about mutual masturbation, masturbation of any form or of any number of other sexual acts has never been shown to decrease children’s risk of becoming infected with STIs. However, one thing we know is that even though the number of children involved in sexual behavior has somewhat stabilized, it is still too high and the incidences of sexually transmitted diseases among our children is rampant, in spite of the prevalence of sex-ed programs similar to this one advocated by Chancellor Walcott.

"One wants to ask Chancellor Walcott, given that since programs similar to the one he so dearly wants in the New York schools have been shown time and again to be such failures in preventing STIs and pregnancies, why does he persist in supporting this program and in undermining parental guidance for their children? Does he have an underlying philosophy about sex that he is attempting to force on the young people he has some control of? Is he trying to impose HIS morality, HIS sexual ideology? Though he 'waves' a limited opt out for parents as a weak argument to prove he isn't imposing his beliefs on the students, one still has to wonder about his motives.

"It seems that it would behoove parents to exercise their responsibility to their own children by vigorously opposing Chancellor Walcott’s efforts by every legal means they and their friends can muster, to not only protect the health of their children but also for their 'goodness' as well."
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Resources
CMA joins push to restore abstinence education funding
Hooked: How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children