These types of questions are always a bit puzzling to me, primarily because I was afraid of girls until I was in my twenties, and could not have fathomed having sex at the age of eleven. My own slow development aside, clearly this is an issue, as teenage pregnancy rates continue to rise and STD outbreaks reach epidemic proportions in certain areas. Many counties across the nation have responded by lowering the age at which sex education is taught in its schools, and some districts have gone so far as to distribute birth control at the middle-school level. The debate over whether this encourages sex is inevitable, but rarely do we hear discussions about ethics, rights, and what we ought to do.
In addressing the question of whether sex education encourages young people to have sex, I wish to suggest that hormones, culture, evolutionary biology, and peer pressure are all more likely causes than the proliferation of sex education classes and distribution of birth control. Such measures are a response to the problem rather than a cause. The message behind sexual education and birth control is not “its okay to have sex,” but rather “this is information about sex, most importantly how to protect yourself and avoid consequences that are not good when you are eleven. Or seventeen for that matter.”
Suggesting that sex education encourages sexual behavior is analogous to suggesting that driver’s education encourages driving. One has nothing to do with the other.
That said, we turn to the ethical questions associated with making birth control available to eleven year olds. It is important to note that, based on the information that I saw, most of these programs require a parental notification as well as counseling services before the student is given birth control. It is not as though condom dispensers have been installed in the bathrooms, though that would probably be a good idea.
Regarding what we, as a society, ought to do, I see a strong correlation between adolescent birth control and abortion.
The moral considerations of abortion are somewhat irrelevant to the social policy considerations. It would be great if all children were planned and only parents who could support and care for their children properly had kids, but the reality is that many individuals end up pregnant but don’t want to be, while others are totally unqualified to be parents.
Realistically, what we want is for people to get their act together and be responsible about pregnancy and parenting. Until we can verify that this is the case, it makes good sense to allow people the option of terminating unwanted pregnancies. In my view, respect for autonomy and intelligent social policy trumps a fetal right to life that is highly debatable and largely depends on one’s definition of a person.
The connection to birth control issues is that again, morality is not relevant at this point. We know, unequivocally, that young people are having sex. It is also safe to say that most individuals under eighteen are ill equipped to be good parents. Some can do it, but most cannot. Thus, it is good social policy to prevent unwanted pregnancies as much as possible within this age group. Further, if you are one who believes abortion is morally wrong, you ought to support these types of programs simply for the sake of being consistent.
The greater goal of wanting people to view sex as a reproductive activity that is reserved for monogamous adults, which I believe to be the real goal of people’s objection to abortion and birth control, is simply not realistic.
Ethically speaking, if one were to set aside the issue of appropriate social policy, it seems that adolescent birth control questions are really a question of when we consider someone an autonomous being. While some will argue that birth control is not a right and therefore not a question of autonomy, I am comfortable with the claim that women have a right to choose whether or not they want to have a baby, and that this should not correlate to a question about whether or not to have sex.
So the concern here is whether or not an eleven year old is an autonomous agent. I think it is safe to say that they are not. Children of this age do not have fully developed brains, reasoning skills, or a complete understanding of the consequences of their actions. Children are shortsighted an impulsive, and they are not capable of consistent, rational choice. We cannot reasonably consider them autonomous agents.
Although this would seem to suggest that distributing birth control to eleven year olds is morally wrong, I want to clarify that I am not addressing that question, for the simple fact that it is socially irrelevant. The state of our society requires that we have these types of programs. Until this is not the case, questions of moral ought must take a backseat to that of social necessity.
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