PAGE 5 — The Georgia Bulletin, February 12, 1987
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Sheila Mallon
"No” To School-Based Clinics
Choose Life
Secretary of Education William J. Bennett spoke recently
regarding the teaching of sex education. He said, “The
schools have to stop being neutral. ! think most Americans
want to urge not what might be the most ‘comfortable’ thing,
but the right thing. Why are we so afraid to say what it is? The
majority of parents would welcome the teaching of the old-
fashioned values of chastity, virtue and sex in the context of
marriage.”
According to the article, “apart from its neutrality, sex
education seems not to have accomplished much. By 1985,
an estimated 70 percent of seniors had been subjected to sex
education courses.” Bennett doubts the courses are doing
any good. “More than half of our young people have had inter
course by the time they are 17. More than a million teenage
girls become pregnant each year. More than 400,000 teenage
girls have abortions each year.”
Bennett recommended that courses teach sexual restraint,
stress that sex is not simply a mechanical act and that
courses should speak for the institution of the family.
Educators should rid themselves of the defeatist attitude
that teenagers are going to “do it” anyway and the best way
to curb pregnancy is to hand out contraceptives. Bennett has
a common sense approach to a problem that has escalated
correspondingly with an outlay of millions of dollars in family
planning funds and sex education programs that are obvious
ly not working.
The newest program to receive the usual media hype is the
“school-based health clinic.” This clinic would be based in
the school and would provide family planning information as
well as contraceptives to school children. In some places the
clinics are in both middle schools and high schools. Ac
cording to who is doing the talking, they are either the best
answer or the worst answer to the problem of teen pregnancy
- to come down the pike in a long time.
An article carried in the Wall Street Journal in October
gave, I believe, the best analysis of what these family plan
ning clinics have actually achieved. The article was written by
Stan E. Weed, who is the director of the independent Institute
for Research and Evaluation in Salt Lake City. He reports, “as
the number and proportion of teenage family planning clients
increased, we observed a corresponding increase in the
teenage pregnancy and abortion rates: 50 to 120 more
pregnancies per thousand clients rather than the 200 to 300
fewer pregnancies as estimated by researchers at the Alan
Guttmacher Institute (formerly the research arm of the Plan
ned Parenthood Federation). We did find that greater teenage
participation in such clinics led to lower teen birth rates.
However, the impact on the abortion and pregnancy rates
was exactly opposite the stated intention of the program. The
original problem (teen pregnancy) appears to have grown
worse.” His research showed that while the pregnancy rate
rose in the teen clients of these clinics the abortion rate rose
correspondingly and so the birth rate dropped. These clinics
are apparently more effective at convincing teens to avoid
birth than to avoid pregnancy. Unfortunately, says Weed,
“that is not what the effort was set up to do nor the basis on
which it was funded.”
In Atlanta, we have one clinic already in place. It is adjacent
to Carver High School and while not actually on the school
premises at this time is scheduled to be in the future. Clinics
are slated for four other schools in the city of Atlanta and
Fulton County. The clinics have been proposed by groups in
both DeKalb and Gwinnett counties and both have task
forces investigating the possibility and feasibility of having
these clinics on school grounds.
There are proposals for clinics in Dublin, Savannah,
Waycross and Alton and three of these have already been
allocated some funding by the state Legislature. Some of
these clinics may now be operational.
There are approximately 150 school-based clinics nation
wide at this time. Most of them have received grants from the
Robert Wood Foundation to set up the initial clinic. The grant
generally lasts six years at which time the taxpayer will have
to pick up the full burden of these operations. Even when the
clinic is funded by the grant the taxpayer will still be paying
for much of the cost.
In many of the clinics parental consent is required. A slip is
sent home to the parents. If parents decide that they do not
want their child involved in the clinic they are supposed to
send the form back with a negative response. If the form is
not returned the school assumes that the parents have
assented to their child attending the clinic.
As parents and grandparents we must assume respon
sibility for preventing the spread of these clinics. We need to
contact our school board officials, our county commission
chairperson, the state Board of Education and the Governor's
Office. It would also be helpful to contact the state Depart
ment of Health and local county health offices. Write to them
and express your feelings about this effort and the detrimen
tal effect that you believe it will have on our young people. It
sends them the message that our officials, those in authority,
expect them to be sexually active. We need to recommend
that the same “Say No” program be used for teen sex that we
are currently using for drugs.
We can also offer an alternative program. There is a fine
curriculum which is being used in other states. It is called
“Sex Respect,” and it was put together by Colleen Kelley
Mast. It has been used in the Illinois public school system
and it teaches young people respect for sex and respect for
themselves and each other. The program teaches values and
responsibility.
With the spread of AIDS, herpes and other sexually
transmitted diseases rampant in our society, isn't it time we
put on the brakes? The real path back to a sane and effective
policy to prevent teen pregnancies is not an easy one, but it is
the only one that will work. This path does not circumvent the
family but leads straight to the heart of it. It encourages com
munication between parents and children and is built on the
firm foundation of parents’ values, beliefs and ambitions for
their children.
Father Eugene Hemrick
Catholics And Assimilation
The Human Side
If there is one film that is a must for all Catholics to see, it
is the new documentary on Mother Teresa. Through the
camera's eye we are taken into ghettos where we see Mother
Teresa’s sisters ministering to the starving and dying.
They are young women, most of whom look as if they
themselves came from a background of poverty. Their life is
austere, no carpets on the floor, no beds, nothing but the
bare essentials.
Mother Teresa’s story is one of total dedication to love of
Jesus and to all who suffer. It is a witness of one of the finest
Catholic traditions we have.
As Catholics, we have many beautiful traditions. We have
those who dedicate themselves to the religious life. There is
a liturgical calendar in which we celebrate the lives of saints
and great feasts. Asceticism, mortification and works of mer
cy are part of the richness of our spirituality. Our understand
ing of the sacramental life and the dogmas of the church
give us a Catholic distinctiveness.
There are some who now are asking whether Catholic tradi
tions still have the impact they once had. The question is rais
ed because there is strong evidence that Catholics are being
assimilated into the mainstream of American culture. The im
migrant Catholic who made the church the center of life, who
lived next door to Catholics and celebrated feast days with
neighbors is becoming extinct.
Assimilation has been facilitated by several changes over
the last decades. Our language and the culture it implies have
become more common. We have moved from ethnic
neighborhoods to non-ethnic suburbs in which Catholics live
-side by side with non-Catholics.
Mixed marriages are more common — today between 40
percent and 45 percent.
We are sending our children to non-Catholic high schools
and colleges. Of every 100 Catholics in college, between 9
and 10 are in a Catholic college. The media is overwhelming
ly secular and one of the strongest means of forming us into
a common culture.
As our children become more assimilated into the
American mainstream we must ask ourselves whether they
will be able to recognize the beauty of Catholic traditions in
the work of a Mother Teresa. Will the richness of feast days,
the ringing of church bells and ceremonies have special
meaning to them? As they jet from one place to another will
the sacramental life of the church and its teachings be view
ed as a source of warmth and strength?
Who of us is sitting down with our children or friends to
figure out the assimilation we are experiencing and what it is
doing to the traditions of Catholicism?
(Copyright (c) 1987 by NC News Service)
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Father John Dietzen
Question Corner
Peace Through God's Grace
Dear Readers:
Only a couple of times through the years have I devoted a
column to a letter from a reader. The one this week is special.
I print it for the encouragement and support it may give to
hundreds of divorced and remarried people who find
themselves in something like the same situation. I am
grateful to the woman who shares her happiness with us.
Dear Father Dietzen:
A mother wrote to you that her divorced and again
separated daughter would like to return to the Catholic
Church but was afraid she would not be allowed to receive
the sacraments.
I hope she accepts your suggestion that she talk with her
parish priest and follow his advice.
Lam a divorced Catholic who remarried outside the church
for the second marriage. The last two years of the second
marriage (I am now divorced again) I attended Mass on a
regular basis without receiving the sacraments.
Those two years of watching my fellow parishioners
receive Communion while I sat were difficult and humbling. I
came to realize how much we can take this weekly God-given
gift for granted.
After divorcing my second husband I tearfully approached
an unfamiliar priest in an unfamiliar city. This priest was
literally a godsend to me.
After a long discussion and tearful confession (my first in
five years) I started annulment proceedings. The following
Sunday I received my first Communion in five years! Before
Communion the congregation read aloud “Footsteps.” I
could hardly see the words on the sheet through my tears.
As I approached Father for Communion he looked at me
and said, “Cathy, receive the Body of Christ.” I couldn’t even
respond as the tears were welling up in my heart again, as
they are now reliving that day.
For the past year every time I receive Communion I feel the
glory and peace of partaking in this sacrament.
Please tell this young woman and all people in the same
situation to continue in their faith by going to Mass, whether
or not they are able to receive the sacraments. I pray for them
that they may find the peace that I have found through God’s
grace.
God has given me a very special gift, my fiance. With God’s
help I plan to finally make a marriage work. I thank him every
day. The priest is happily helping us through the preparations
and, God willing, will unite us this next summer in the sacra
ment of marriage.
Copyright (c) 1987 by NC News Service
