For Tom Fiebiger, it’s about getting good information to young people so they can make good decisions. But he knows it’s not going to be that easy.
Fiebiger is a North Dakota state senator from District 45, in Fargo. He is a Democrat, which shouldn’t make any difference in this discussion about the safety and well-being of our young people – but it probably will. Democrats are such a small minority in the state legislature that the Republicans don’t even have to acknowledge their existence or ideas, so they rarely do.
This is one time the majority party should engage in a serious discussion with the minority.
Fiebiger, via some letters to the editor, is trying to start a dialogue about the need for comprehensive sex education in North Dakota’s public schools. As it stands now, each district and each teacher is pretty much on their own when it comes to educating our kids about how birds and bees make more birds and bees.
“The irony for me was that I’m on the Interim Human Services Committee and one of the charges of the committee is to study ways to help pregnant teenagers,” Fiebiger said. “I thought, ‘Why aren’t we talking about ways to prevent that from happening?’”
Fiebiger knows this isn’t going to be easy. The mixing of sex ed and public schools never is. There will be questions about schools’ role in educating youngsters about sex, which many feel should be left solely up to parents (even though that’s a utopian pipe dream). There will be questions from religious denominations about providing birth-control information. There will be questions about the state sticking its nose into local school districts. There will be calls for the continuation of federally-funded abstinence-only education, even though those programs are ineffective, dangerous and a complete waste of taxpayer money.
This is a tough topic to tackle. Even in much more liberal Minnesota, legislators can’t get a comprehensive sex-education bill passed. Is there any chance in North Dakota?
“If you don’t start talking about it, you’ll never reach a solution,” Fiebiger said. “Part of our job is to deal with tough jobs.”
Comprehensive sex-ed would include things like supporting parents as the primary sexuality educator of their children, medically accurate sex education and access to reproductive health services. Yes, the talk in the Legislature would be uncomfortable – talking about teens having sex and birth control and sexually-transmitted diseases – but the end game is worth it. Fewer pregnant teens, fewer abortions, fewer STDs. Who could be opposed to that?
“I think everybody has the same goal in mind,” Fiebiger said.
The question is: How to get there?
For Fiebiger, it’s all about information. He says teen-agers need access to reliable, accurate information from which they can make choices. It’s not about pushing things at teen-agers; it’s about giving information. What the teens do with that information is up to them.
“Some of my colleagues have said we’re getting into murky areas. I don’t think they are murky at all,” Fiebiger said. “We need to have this dialogue. We can look at what other states are doing. We can look at what districts in our state are doing. What’s effective and what’s not effective. We can provide information without telling people what they have to do.”
I applaud Fiebiger’s effort, even if I know the chances of getting anything done on this front are minimal. There will be the usual, vocal opposition from people who don’t want their kids taught about birth control, or who believe it’s a school’s job to preach abstinence-only sex-education. There will, of course, be those dolts who believe that providing information about sex will lead young people to debauchery and hedonism.
That’s too bad. With the information available today, unintended teen pregnancies can be cut down considerably.
The key is getting that information to the kids. Comprehensive sex ed in schools could be the vehicle for that information.
