Sexuality workshop an eye-opener for teens - Feb 7, 2006

*Once more unto the Breach!*
Just a quick response today because the majority of the letter is anecdotal.

IN THE article 'Students cry foul over sexuality workshop that pushed these messages' (Sunday Times, Jan 29), reporter Jeremy Au Yong said a four-hour workshop of the Family Life Society irked some students.

It was held under the Education Ministry's guidelines to provide sexuality education for upper secondary and tertiary students. He said the teachings were 'too strong' because it discouraged contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilization and human embryonic stem cell research and allegedly infringed on other freedoms of thought.

As a parent of two adult sons, a practising doctor, and a volunteer helper in orphanages locally and overseas, I am grateful to see that the Family Life Society is bringing traditional values on sexuality to the sexually active young here.

As a young medical student, I learned about infectious diseases such as gonorrhoea and syphilis. We saw men and women in venereal disease clinics with fear in their eyes as they passed pus from their genitalia in pain. We also saw the tears of women who had repeated strictures of the fallopian tubes because of venereal-transmitted disease. These women remained sterile.

Later, I would be one of the first to see the early cases of HIV and Aids in the United States. There was fear in the partner, knowing that to contact Aids was a death sentence and ostracism from their sexual partners.

At an orphanage overseas, we find that without the exceptional love of the care-givers, these orphaned children would be dead.

Some children were dumped on the streets by the single mums. If they were lucky and got picked up, they were saved. In other instances, abandoned babies could be eaten by hungry dogs.

Locally, in one of the new homes for 'battered children, and teenaged mums in crises', we try to provide them a shelter until the mum can complete her studies and learn her trade. I wondered. Was this a price of the freedom of sexual expression?

Yada yada yada. Nice anecdote but ultimately irrelevant and ending with a non-sequitur. The freedom of sexual expression may be mutually exclusive with a pro-abstinence approach, but it is not mutually exclusive with an abstinence plus or a comprehensive sexual education approach.

Therefore the real issue should not simply be whether the freedom of sexual expression is bad, for it's pretty much a moot question, but rather which policy advocated best prevents all these horrible things from happening. Pro-abstinence policies do NOT work. And definitely do not work as well as comprehensive sexual education. For links, statistics, citations, please refer to the previous post.

In fact, one has to wonder how much sexual education those 'battered women' (what the hell does this got to do with freedom of sexual expression anyway?) and teenage mothers got. Are you thinking what I'm thinking B1? Yes I think I am B2...

When my teenaged sons were growing up, my wife and I would reflect on the question 'what if both of us died suddenly, who would look after them? What if they picked up bad moral values and would not listen to our counseling?' My experiences in a public school helped me to guide my sons but like in my time, masturbation and homosexual behavior were not rare in the schools, though dating with the opposite sex was not frequent. We were free and unrestrained in what we wanted to do as long as we did not breach school discipline.

A little incoherent this. I really don't understand what his point his. Is he trying to associate freedom of sexual expression with bad values and morals?

Family Life Society has its opponents. While it champions responsible parenthood, the sanctity of marriage, the sexual act within marriage, and the precious value of all human life (regardless of how weak that life is), it also actively discourages euthanasia in all forms, such as contraception (where sperms are killed), abortion (where life is intentionally terminated), and embryonic stem cell research (where the hapless human life is destroyed).

If he's a medical doctor as is claimed above, then he's being disingenuous with regards to the human life bit. The scientific definition of human life is anything with human DNA, thus hair is human life and does not answer the broader issue of abortion and its morality. As for contraception, I think it's reflective that he only looks at male type contraception and besides nocturnal emissions kill sperm as well.

My sons are now responsible professionals. While we disagree from time to time, my wife and I still keep our traditional values.

The teenage sexually active school children here have been given an eye opener. It is now their choice.

Tradition good? *Shrugg* it all depends. I would seriously like to know what choice these school children were given, being lied to does not allow for an informed rational choice to be made. Not having access to the opposing viewpoint does not allow for any possible choice. At best it is a choice made out of ignorance, at worst, duress.

Peace.