Summer is traditionally high spawning season for teenagers, and while watching the local adolescents engage in their time-honored mating rituals I've been thinking about sex ed again lately. Conveniently, the national press never stops thinking about teenagers having sex either* as evidenced by a couple of recent articles.
Today's MSNBC article Doctors denounce abstinence-only sex ed

Here at RiverRocks we're big on metaphors.

People who believe increased availability to contraception will increase sexual activity have their priorities backwards. It's not their place to impose their own religious views regarding sexuality on others who don't share those views. To the contrary, restricting access of fellow citizens to vital safety measures makes them partly liable for the consequences - increased pregnancy rates, increased abortions and increased STD's. I don't personally believe it's right to risk your life (and those of would-be rescuers) in dangerous sports like mountain climbing, for instance. I would never engage in that kind of risky behavior myself. But it could be argued that the increased availability of safety measures designed for that sport (ropes, gear and emergency locator beacons) encourages people who otherwise wouldn't chance it to engage in an activity that is inherently risky. But nobody advocates restricting the access to that safety gear. And certainly nobody advocates withholding government funding for rescue operations when the foolhardiness of those who do mountain climb imperils their own life and limb. Controlling access to emergency contraception is the moral equivalent of controlling access to mountaineering survival gear.

*let's face it - from Romeo & Juliet to Lolita to, to Porky's and American Pie and on up to the vilest form of "barely legal" pornmongery we as a society have always been fascinated with the sex lives of teenagers. At the same time churches have been preaching abstinence only for 2000+ years. If it hasn't worked yet, what makes them think it will start working now?