a few weeks ago, I wrote about the pain and heartache that abortion causes to three victims: death to the innocent unborn child, emotional trauma and possible physical injury to the mother who aborts her helpless baby, and outraged anger to the frustrated father who never gets to see his offspring alive.
But as some readers pointed out, all of these needless tragedies could be avoided by curtailing the illicit sexual activity that leads to unwanted pregnancies. Without intercourse, conception simply cannot occur. The sure-fire cure for unwanted pregnancy is not more classroom instruction in putting condoms on bananas, but sexual abstinence until marriage.
Most young people who find themselves in this difficult situation weren’t consciously trying to get pregnant, any more than most people who drive 90 miles per hour are trying to get a speeding ticket. But in the back of your mind, you know that it can happen. There are serious consequences when it does. Even without pregnancy, there are other big risk factors for sexually promiscuous people.
Young people rarely consider the fact that about 30 sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are running rampant through our post-Christian society. The Centers for Disease Control has called these STDs a "hidden epidemic" because they infect between 8,000 and 10,000 teenagers DaILY. Because the symptoms either are not evident or are misunderstood, 85 percent of teenagers infected with STDs don’t even know it.
Gonorrhea and syphilis had almost been wiped out before the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 70s. Now they are back again in more virulent forms that are resistant to antibiotics. If not treated early, they can cause irreversible physical damage. Parents of middle-schoolers with chronic sore throats are often surprised to learn that the problem isn’t strep but gonorrhea of the mouth, caused by "giving a Monica," or oral sex.
Some of these diseases are life threatening — like aIDS. and some of them — like genital herpes — are incurable. a pregnant mother with herpes may have no symptoms, but her baby may be born retarded, with a brain that looks like Swiss cheese on a CaT-scan. according to the New England Journal of Medicine, approximately 20 percent of americans had herpes a few years ago. If present trends continue, up to half of all american men may be infected with herpes in another decade.
What about so-called "safe sex"? Well, the sad truth is, it isn’t safe. Yes, condoms may partially inhibit the spread of some diseases, just as they may stop some pregnancies from occurring. But in most cases, they don’t help girls much. One sobering statistic reveals that every time a teenage girl has extramarital sex, she has a 47 percent chance of catching the virus that causes cervical cancer. This disease, which can be deadly, once was found only in women age 50 and over; now it’s showing up in 13-year-old girls.
Many sexually promiscuous teens become depressed, and some either attempt or commit suicide. Why? Well, according to Dr. armand Nicholi of Harvard Medical School, our contemporary acceptance of casual sex "has often led to empty relationships, feelings of self-contempt and worthlessness," instead of the liberation, fulfillment and happiness implied by the suggestive abercrombie and Fitch ads targeting teens.
Funny, you’d never guess that’s true from watching all those slick ads that glorify sex, like the new pornographic Paris Hilton commercial for Hardee’s hamburgers. Hollywood movies, TV sitcoms, and glossy magazines . . . everything in our popular culture screams SEX — JUST DO IT! Why not? Everybody else is.
are today’s young people so enslaved by their raging hormones that they are incapable of making moral choices and exercising sexual self-restraint? That’s what Liberals want you to believe. But I disagree. Parents need to emphasize moral purity and teach our children to practice virtue. abstinence not only works, it pays long-term dividends.
Old-fashioned sexual morality may not seem so cool or hip, but it can sure keep you out of trouble. In plain terms: young women and men need to learn to say "No" and mean it.
Copyright © 2005 by Nathan Tabor
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