An interesting column on that whole sex-ed thing by Barbara Kay. I especially like this bit:

Human beings are the only creatures for whom shame, guilt and modesty (especially in girls) are instinctive. We are also the only creatures who assign certain behaviours to the realm of the private, and certain to the realm of the public.

Schools are by nature an artificial construct. They were designed to transmit objective knowledge about subjects that are amenable to collective learning: literacy, numeracy, history, scientific data and the arts.

Sexuality is different. When children of both sexes absorb information from a relative stranger about deeply private feelings and behaviours in a group environment — when the private is made public — they are being co-opted into a rudimentary form of collective voyeurism, which, even when earnestly accompanied by exhortations to responsibility (condoms!), is inherently titillating and a licence to breach natural modesty boundaries.

The papers report the abortion issue is waking up.

Politicians may gain nothing in this debate, but pro-lifers have nothing to lose.

Heh:

The sixth annual report card, released in part by the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, found alarming trends for decreased physical activity in younger children.

Most toddlers under the age of two have already spent some time in front of the TV, it said — even though it is recommended they get zero screen time before their second birthday.

One American study used to compile the report found that 89 per cent of time spent at day care was sedentary.

OK, so maybe I’m using a cute excuse to engage in daycare-bashing (it’s a bit of a hobby). It is of course up to parents to help kids develop healthy life habits, no matter where they spend their days. So get to it.

Look, I can see why some people are annoyed that parents would refuse to have the school teach their kids awfully graphic sexual stuff too early. If you believe Ontario sixth graders should know the mechanics of vaginal lubrication, then obviously you’re probably upset right now. Maybe you think those of us who disagree with you are ridiculously prude. Maybe you think we’re hopelessly behind the times. You know, repressed. (That’s OK, we have different words for you.)

But don’t push it, ‘kay?

MATERnal health. Making motherhood safer. Great column in the Citizen today, that lays out why and how United Nations types needle the developing world towards abortion and “reproductive rights,” in spite of the fact that they don’t want it and in spite of the fact that maternal health and abortion have nothing to do with one another.

Kudos to Canada for speaking out against this.

The latest round of sex-ed curriculum letters and columns in my local paper reflects some puzzlement at the McGuinty government’s whiplash-inducing flip-flop. For the record, regardless of the merits of the ex-new sex-ed curriculum, McGuinty should be voted off the island just for not seeing this coming. I have been receiving emails and invitations to protest the new curriculum since December. I’m sure Dalton has too.

What I should have seen coming was the portrayal of parents who opposed the changed to the Ontario sex-ed curriculum as knuckle-dragging right-wing bigots. Read the comments here , here , and to some extent here .

Count me in I guess; although anyone who has followed my posts about the birds and the bees knows that my children ask a lot of questions and I don’t sugar-coat anything. But believe me, when one of my pre-teens asked me how homosexuals conceived children since they couldn’t have intercourse and what’s the point of marrying someone you can’t have sex with, I wished I had a habit of making things up. Oh, look at the time… Anyway, these letter-writers all miss the point. I have no issue with my children knowing that their genitals won’t fall-off if they touch them or that homosexuals are not psychopaths. I don’t think that sex-ed is corrupting. I am not anti sex-ed, I am anti sex-ed curriculum. My kids’ sex-education is no government’s business. Sex-ed and curriculum are two words that shouldn’t go together. Like Public and Toilets.

But while letter-writers and columnists don’t get my point, I do get theirs and, believe it or not, the government’s. Unfortunately, many children do not get proper sex education at home. It’s like religion in Catholic schools: parents want their kids to have it, they just don’t want to teach it. Some children — yes, they are still children — are sexually active in grade 7 and 8. The hoopla over the HPV vaccine was based in part over the fact that grade 4 girls were vaccinated because after that we couldn’t be sure they were not already sexually active. That shows immense failure on the part of the parents, not the system. How are parents failing their children when it comes to sexual education? Is it MTV? Is it pop radio? Is it La Senza Girl? Is it American abstinence-only sex-ed policies? Honestly, I don’t really know. But I will grant my detractors that the rate of teenage pregnancy and abortion, and STD transmission is outrageous and no flattering reflection on parents or the state’s ability to handle the topic. It’s easy to blame your opponent when stats increase regardless. But while we’re talking, we are still failing our children.

In the Medical Post (not available online) there’s a full page article on abortion and grieving from the doctor’s perspective by one Shane Neilson in Erin, Ontario. Very interesting, in particular because the doctor is not pro-life. He doesn’t like abortion, but he does refer for them. He says he has but once seen a women who had an abortion and didn’t regret it. The remorseless 19-year-old who shows up in his office one week after an abortion is the subject of his column.

He says she appears to live in an “emotional dead zone” and that he “wants to shake her, but [does] the Pap and bimanual exam instead.”

He concludes with this line: “It haunts me that I wrote in the chart that her uterus had returned to a normal size.”

I feel for him. Seems to be strangled by his own desire not to press his opinion on others. I’d like to shake him, actually, I’m betting he doesn’t hesitate to impress his view in other areas–maybe weight loss or smoking. So here’s a doctor who consistently sees women grieving their abortions but won’t cease to refer for them. I think he sounds like a good man, a good doctor. But why won’t he stand up for what he knows to be true? That the fetus matters, even if he’s not sure it’s human? That women suffer after the fact?

In any event, sounds like this doctor doesn’t love abortion. And for that I’m glad. If it continues to haunt him, that “uterus has returned to normal size” comment after it was just violently emptied… chances are sooner or later he’ll stop and think some more about his choices in this situation.

___________________________

Brigitte seconds that: I’m glad to see he was at least disturbed. Beats this guy.

I laughed out loud at the headline alone but the quotes are even better:

Young Abortion Foes Trouble NARAL Leader

Yes, yes. I’m sure they do.