I believe high school student Heather Ells was wrong in her guest op-ed column ”Utah students don’t need comprehensive sex education” (June 14). When she claims that only 41 percent of U.S. teens have had sex, that destroys her argument. I am sure the number, is higher given that teens are not all going to admit to having had sexual activity and you just know it’s going on.
A more alarming statistic is that condom use among sexually active teens in the U.S. fell from 62.8 percent in 2005 to 53.8 percent in 2017, as reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (USA Today, June 15). That clearly shows a need for comprehensive sex education in the public schools.
A Planned Parenthood speaker at Cottonwood High gave a presentation to a health class this year promoting abstinence and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, but she told me that Utah law on sex education prohibits mention of birth control generally or condoms specifically.
That discussion is only allowed after school hours, so if Ells’ class was discussing contraception during school time, it was breaking Utah law.
Marty Bernstein, Midvale