Canton School Board Abandons Abstinence Only Sex Education

This story is certainly not surprising:

An Ohio school board is expanding sex education following the revelation that 13 percent of one high school's female students were pregnant last year.

There were 490 female students at Timken High School in 2005, and 65 were pregnant, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported.

We live in a very sexual society, but under the current conservative philosophy, we are not allowed to educate our children about sex. As a result, we have the worst of both worlds. All of the advertising and movies out there encourage children to have sex, but children have little knowledge of appropriate sexual behavior.

Telling children, "Just don't do it," isn't good enough, as Timken High School found out. Children need to be taught what responsible sexual behavior is. Once they understand that, it's easier to show them that having sex during childhood is always irresponsible.

That first sexual experience is always done for the wrong reasons: To find out what all the shouting is about; to prove you're a "Man" or a "Woman"; to keep your lover happy; or because you're supposed to have sex on your wedding night. So, the first sexual experience should come at a time when you have the maturity to deal with all the emotional and physical fallout from bad sex.

It's good to see that the adults running Timken High we willing to look at the data, cast ideology aside, and do what's good for their students.