STUDY: University insists 10-year-olds should take sex education
by Maggie Lit
Authors say kids are susceptible to experimentation between the ages of 10-14. The study suggests it would help avoid unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and sexually transmitted infections.
Georgetown University has released a study that suggests it is a necessity for children to learn about sexual health as early as ten years old.
Those involved in the study suggest that it would help avoid unintended pregnancies, maternal deaths, unsafe abortions, and sexually transmitted infections because the “very young adolescents” would be exposed to these potential dangers at an age when their sexuality and gender identity begin to emerge—said to be ages 10-14. [See study in Global Public Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice , “Investing in very young adolescents' sexual and reproductive health”, Susan M. Igras (Institute for Reproductive Health, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA), Marjorie Macieira (Macieira Consulting, Arlington, VA, USA), Elaine Murphy (Population Reference Bureau, St Petersburg, FL, USA), and Rebecka Lundgren (Institute for Reproductive Health, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA); Published online: 13 May 2014.]
“If programs…are implemented at a time when adolescents are still malleable and relatively free of sexual and reproductive health problems and gender role biases, very young adolescents can be guided safely through this life stage, supported by their parents, families and communities,” the study’s authors suggest.
The authors argue that kids are susceptible to experimentation during this four year span of developing sexual and gender identities, which could result in
them taking unnecessary risks unless they are properly trained. The study also suggests that current programs either encourage abstinence-only solutions by telling teens sex is dirty, or the programs aren’t tailored to this key age group, thereby making these solutions ineffective.
“Since early adolescence marks a critical transition between childhood and older adolescence and adulthood...targeted investment in VYAs [very young adolescents] is imperative to lay foundations for healthy future relationships and positive SRH [sexual and reproductive health],” the study says.
According to a recent report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, most American teens are already sexually active before they receive formal training, partly due to the lack of implementation of US policy to enforce and require a national standard for sex ed classes in public schools.
“The implications are so clear,” Victoria Jennings, the director of the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown told the Chicago Tribune. “Adolescents in all cultures and every social status are learning at 10, 11, 12 how to match up to gender roles and expectations for them.”
Jennings feels that initiating kids into sex ed at the early age of ten would allow them time to develop self-esteem and healthy expectations for themselves.
[Note: Georgetown University has a long history of interest in human population and reproduction studies. The original name of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics was the Kennedy Center for the Study of Human Reproduction and Development (Andre Helligers, 1970). In 1971 the name changed to The Joseph and Rose Kennedy Center for the Study of Human Reproduction and Bioethics, and finally changed to the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. Currently many departments at Georgetown incorporate population studies, including its Center for Population and Health, at: https://cph.georgetown.edu/, not to mention its Institute for Reproductive Health (cited in the article below). So the article above is no big surprise.
Indeed, the forerunners of the formal “birth” of bioethics (Belmont Report 1978), dating from the end of World War II, were deep into population control and eugenics (see extensive historical references in the first part of Irving, “What is ‘bioethics’?”). And even before the Belmont Report there were already extensive connections between bioethics and transhumanism/futurism/posthumanism. (See, e.g., “The term bioethics began to replace the term pastoral ethics, or medical ethics, early in 1971, after the biologist Van Rensselaer Potter, in his book Bioethics: The Bridge to the Future, introduced it to include the many new interrelated biological issues arising from life sciences and their social implications (Potter 1971).” [Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., Jean DeBlois, C.S. J., Kevin D. O’Rourke, O.P., Health Care Ethics-A Catholic Theological Analysis (5th ed.) (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006), pp.3-4, “Overview: 1.1, The Emergence of Secular Bioethics”], at: https://www.scribd.com/doc/125608668/Ashley-Health-Care-Ethics-A-Catholic-Theological-Analysis]. This was the time of the “Age of Aquarius” and “New Age” (both gnostic transhumanist movements), as well as the then-prevalent form of transhumanism developed by Jesuit archeologist Teilhard de Chardin involving his “noosphere” and “Omega Point” (comparable to today’s transhumanist/futurist “Singularity”) -- de Chardin’s work also highly promoted at Georgetown University even to today). (See Albert R. Jonsen, The Birth of Bioethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 22-24 -- quoted in Irving, "What is 'bioethics'?" (June 3, 2000), at: https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_36whatisbioethics01.html; see also Irving, “Bioethics Think Tanks and Reference Materials”, August 8, 2004, at: https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_68thinktanksrefer.html). Small world.
Quite unfortunately, Georgetown University is also the home of Jesuit theologian and bioethicist Richard McCormick the co-creator of the fake scientific term “pre-embryo” (which thus “allows” destructive experimental human embryo research, human cloning, human genetic engineering, the use of abortifacients, etc.), as well as the deconstruction of the traditional Hippocratic Oath that now allows abortion and euthanasia. See video of this year’s Georgetown University Medical School graduation ceremony on May 18, 2014, at: https://vimeo.com/95801905. Especially note that the “Hippocratic Oath” as administered to the graduates by Dr. Donald Knowlan, M.D. left out those parts of the original Hippocratic Oath that forbade both abortion and euthanasia. The administration of the Oath starts about 1 hour and 7 minutes into the video. These omissions are also reflected in the modified version proposed which allows for both abortion and for euthanasia/physician assisted suicide. See, e.g., the recent article in Georgetown University Journal of Health Sciences, “The Fall of the Hippocratic Oath: Why the Hippocratic Oath should be Discarded in Favor of a Modified Version of Pellegrino’s Precepts”, at: https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/journal-of-health-sciences/issues-2/vol-6-no-2-july-2012/the-fall-of-the-hippocratic-oath-why-the-hippocratic-oath-should-be-discarded-in-favor-of-a-modified-version-of-pellegrino%E2%80%99s-precepts/. Might as well add Georgetown’s Institute for Reproductive Health promoting of sex ed for 10-year olds. See also Irving, “Observations on a very funny video about doctors meeting bioethicists (May 24, 2014), at: https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_222meetingbioethicists.html. The article first appeared here.-- DNI]