Lack of Sex Education in U.S. Increases Vulnerability to Sexual Assault, STIs, Former Surgeon General Elders Says

From the Kaiser Family Foundation Women's Health Policy Report, 8/17/07:

(All referenced links in this abstract can be accessed by visiting the original report, linked below)

Lack of Sex Education in U.S. Increases Vulnerability to Sexual Assault, STIs, Former Surgeon General Elders Says

Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders on Wednesday at a Community Health Centers of Arkansas summit on health care said the lack of sex education in the nation is "deafening" and makes children vulnerable to sexual assault and sexually transmitted infections, AP/KUAR reports. She added that the nation is "paying a very heavy price for not educating our young people."

Elders said to more than 200 people at the summit in Little Rock, Ark., that abstinence-only sex education programs are unrealistic (AP/KUAR, 8/16). "The reason" for high HIV and STI rates in "Southern states is because [Southern states] are less likely to have sex education and talk about it as part of our schools and a part of our system," Elders said, adding that abstinence-only programs that do not teach contraception will not solve the issue (Wiest, Arkansas News Bureau, 8/16).

In addition, Elders questioned criticism of Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, for supporting programs teaching age-appropriate sex education to students beginning in kindergarten. Elders said to reporters after her speech, "Certainly, we need to teach children in kindergarten that there are certain places on their bodies nobody is to touch. If they do, they need to tell somebody." She added, "What has allowed so many sex predators to come about and develop is this silence we made and have taught our children."

Former President Clinton appointed Elders as surgeon general in 1993 (AP/KUAR, 8/16). Elders was forced to resign in 1994 after making comments in support of masturbation and condom distribution to help slow the spread of HIV (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 8/1/02). According to the AP/KUAR, Elders in 1994 said that masturbation "perhaps should be taught" in schools to reduce the spread of STIs (AP/KUAR, 8/16).