Dispensing Condoms to High School Students

Name

Instructor’s name

Course

Date

Dispensing Condoms to High School Students

According to a recent article “Making the Case”, the Santa Barbara school district board has been considering distributing free condoms to high school students. The implementation of this program means that condoms will be distributed non-discriminatorily to any students who need them. Perhaps the board could also provide secure havens where students will be conducting sexual experiments.  According to the article, availing free condoms to students will have a long term impact of preventing increasing levels of unwanted pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. The turning point of this decision is that no plans of parental consent or prior sexual counseling have been put in place. Some people undeniably support the board’s program by arguing that the decision will help combat the pandemic of STDs and the rising levels of teenage pregnancies. However, the decision of distributing condoms to the teenagers will be an act of taking away powers inherent in parents of taking care of their children. In particular, providing condoms to high school students will only worsen the situation rather than taming it “…it is essentially promoting a behavior that it should be helping to reduce” (p 281).    

It has been universally agreed that high school students are active in sexual encounters and in any case, the prevalence of STDs and teenage pregnancies is increasing. This has been reckoned in a report by the Guttmacher Institute where about 60 percent of teenagers in their senior year in high school have already had sex (p 281). On real terms, the use of condoms reduces the spread of STDs and prevalence of unwanted pregnancies. Then, one wonders whether it is the responsibility of the board to distribute condoms to these students. Providing condoms for supposedly safe sex would be tantamount to giving students the go ahead to indulge in the activity at will. It is also true that many students of high school age smoke marijuana and drink alcohol. Equally, the school board should provide pure grade marijuana and school-based clubs so that students do not rot in facilities provided outside. Therefore, providing condoms will be admitting to the students’ wayward behavior and only directing them to do it in a more responsible manner “we know you are going to have sex, we accept the behavior, and we want to help you be responsible about it” (p 281). However, according to this article, the correct message for a teenager would be to abstain.

Students as young as in lower high school level have been exposed to literature on research findings on teenage sex issues. Among them is that by the time students reach their higher levels in high school, more than 50 percent of them tend to have engaged in sex. Recommendations that accompany these findings propose particular programs that would reduce the rate of sexual encounters among teenagers. In addition, the current generation curriculum contains classes on the dangers of teenage sex. It has therefore come into limelight that the board’s proposition is in conflict with what students are being taught in class. To avoid issues of STDS and pregnancies as voiced by the board, students are taught to practice abstinence. To this effect, the board is sending mixed message to the students by encouraging them to say yes to sex so long as they use condoms. In addition, distributing condoms to schools will be accepting the fact that the extent of the behavior cannot be reversed. However, the school board should be inclined to the positive side of less sexual activities rather than more. The author of this article argues that, “by dispensing condoms to students, however, they slant the change in the direction of more sexual activity rather than less” (p 281).