Lack of sex ed would mean more abortions

In the column "We must protect children in the womb" Mrs. Berowski talks about how there are countries with more abortions than live births in the world, and how we must use abstinence-only education to rectify that problem. A country with that problem is Russia.

In Russia, there are about 1.6 million abortions compared to 1.5 million live births, and what is it that creates such a problem, you may ask. Well, it is the complete absence of sex education.

The director of the Russian Family Planning Association states because of this lack of education "most young people know almost nothing about how women become pregnant" when they become sexually active around age 16, and they know even less about how to prevent pregnancies. Thus, the quick fix to their problem is to get an abortion of which they do not truly know the risks.

But now you would probably respond to this by saying that abstinence-only education will greatly reduce the problem because a lot fewer people will be having sex. Please, get your head out of the sand. I'm currently a senior in high school, and a very conservative estimate of the number of students who think premarital sex is not wrong is about 80 percent.

Abstinence is just a choice one makes. If you are not abstinent, you are not disrespecting your body as long as you're being cautious and responsible.

This is an opinion held by many in my generation. Thus, about the same number of people will continue to have sex, but with a lack of knowledge of how to prevent pregnancies.

Your naive idea of abstinence-only education will not reduce the number of abortions, but actually raise it. Ignorance and avoidance are never the keys to an issue, but education and awareness are.

Austin Bolesta

Schaumburg