Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions

by Sex-Ed author, Kieran Sawyer

Alice Grayson’s Review of the Sex Education Programs

Kiernan Sawyer’s program is one of the Religious Education Office’s new arrivals. In a sense, Sawyer’s program is not nearly so dangerous as Molly Kelly’s because her personal orientations are quite prominent in her instructions and in her use of role playing, and for that matter, even in her lists of bibliography and vocabulary. Consistently, Kiernan places the students in the shoes of the sinner, the dissenter, the homosexual, the pro-choice Catholic, the divorcee, the contraceptor, and the sexual pervert. One can’t help wondering, from the samples provided, how many roles Ms. Kiernan herself has played before writing this disgusting series.

Bibliography

Cooney, Nancy & Anne Bingham. Understanding Sex and Sexuality. Dubuque, IA; W. C. Brown, 1987.

Fact Sheets (assorted). Washington, D.C.: Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Forlitie, John E. Valuing Values: Sexuality Education in the Catholic Tradition. Dubuque, IA: W. C. Brown, 1986.

Kelly, Molly. Let’s Talk. Jefferson City, MO: Easton Publishing Company, 1987.

Methods of Contraception. Planned Parenthood, 1986.

Teenage Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Parenthood. Washington, D.C.: Center for Population Options, 1986.

The Truth About Abortion: A Fact Sheet Series. Washington, D.C.: National Abortion Federation, 1987.

Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions, [Directors Manual], 1990, 107-108)

Role playing – Jack and Jill character sketches (Sample)

1. Your name is Jack. You are 17, a junior in high school, a star athlete and a good student with plans to be a medical doctor. You’ve been in a panic for weeks because your girlfriend, Jill, has missed two periods. Yesterday the doctor told her that she is definitely pregnant.

What are you feeling?
What are your questions?
What are you going to do?

have been saving for years to send your son to medical school. You want him to have a better chance in life than you had. Your wife just told you that Jack’s girlfriend, Jill, is pregnant.

What are you feeling?
What are your questions?
What are you going to do?

3. You are Jill’s mother. You have been upset with Jill lately because she spends too much time with Jack. Her grades have never been good and this isn’t helping. You are also sad because she doesn’t tell you everything the way she once did. This morning, though, she told you that she is three months pregnant.

What are you feeling?
What are your questions?
What are you going to do?

4. You are Jill’s dad. Jill had always been your “little girl,” and you look forward to the weekends she spends with you. You are beginning to like Jack, the young man she’s been seeing. Today your ex-wife called with the news: Your little girl is pregnant.

What are you feeling?
What are your questions?
What are you going to do?
Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions, [Directors Manual], 1990, pp. 137-139

Review Comments

1. The focus is the pregnancy, which is received as a problem — not a gift.

2. The focus is interruption of worldly plans.

3. The presentation offers choices — not clear guidance to confession and emotional, physical, and spiritual support.

4. The activity invasively makes chaste children “act out” the role of an unchaste — with the underlying premise that “This could be you.” One major reason children remain chaste is that those who love them don’t expect sinful sexual behavior from their children. It is beneath their dignity, it separates them from God.

Role playing neglects substantive instruction. Parents or religious educators could delicately explain the situation that being in an occasion of sin, because of passion, frequently leads to sin, but, that this should not happen if occasions are steadfastly avoided. And of course, in the homes constant examples of forgiveness and prayer, unequivocally teach that all sin is forgiven by God when we are truly sorry.

Privacy Invasion and Values Clarification (Sample)

Where do you stand on interracial dating and marriage? Would you date a person of another race?

What is the attitude of your peers toward homosexuality and homosexuals? What is your attitude?

Describe how you feel when you love someone. How can you tell if your love is true?

Respond to this statement: The only acceptable form of birth control for unmarried teens is abstinence.
Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions, [Directors Manual/Question Cards], 1990, p. 127-129

Values clarification (Sample)

As an individual Catholic Christian and as an American citizen, you must take a personal stance on both the legality and the morality of abortion. This will require much serious prayer and reflection on your part. It is good to do the praying and thinking now and before you and/or someone you love are thrown into the kind of crisis situation Sandy and her friends had to deal with.

The decision-making process we outlined earlier (Participant Book, page 42) should help you to sort out the many complex issues involved in the abortion question.
Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions, [Directors Manual], 1990, p. 55

Review Comments

What’s “complex” or “debatable” about killing babies?” What does Ms. Sawyer mean by the “abortion question?”

Argument for Dissent and Abortion (Sample)

c) What if you disagree with church law?

Your conscience is a personal matter between yourself and God, so you always have a right to disagree privately with a law that you seriously and honestly question. However, in the church you do not always have the right to make your disagreement public. In some cases (abortion is one of them), a person who dissents publicly is subject to censure by church authorities. For instance, a public dissenter on abortion may be prohibited from working for the church as a teacher or minister.

What if you disobey church laws?

Most church laws do not carry any external penalty; sin is usually considered a private matter between a person and God. Abortion is one of the few laws of the church that has a prescribed penalty attached to it, and it carries the strictest penalty of all — excommunication. “A person who procures a successful abortion incurs an automatic excommunication” (Canon 1398). Excommunication means that the person is considered “outside of the communion” of the church and is not allowed to receive any of the sacraments or perform any church ministry until the excommunication has been lifted. Some canon lawyers interpret this law as applying only to adults.
Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions, [Directors Manual], 1990, p. 54

Abortion/Propaganda (sample)

1. You may have read about the current theological debate concerning the morality of abortion. There are some theologians within the Catholic church and other Christian churches who hold that abortion may sometimes be morally admissible in a few exceptional cases, such as rape, incest or severe deformity of the fetus. (Write THEOLOGICAL DEBATE above the 9 on the line and emphasize that very few abortions come under this debatable category.) Those who hold this position are in dissent from the official teaching of the church and may not be allowed to teach in Catholic institutions.

2. Say:

Let’s use what we have learned so far to help us understand the various political positions concerning abortion: PRO-CHOICE, PRO-ABORTION, ANTI-ABORTION, PRO-LIFE (write on board). The political positions are distinguished from one another by how they answer both the legal question and the moral question.

Spend a few minutes with your group seeing if anyone knows how each of these four groups would answer the moral question and how they would like to see the government answer the legal question. (Allow the small groups to work for a few minutes, then discuss their responses in large group. Add information from the following if necessary.)

Political Positions on Abortion (sample)

The strictly pro-choice position is concerned only with the legal question — who should have the legal right to decide. This position contends that abortion should be a personal decision for a woman to make in her own conscience, not a legal matter to be decided by the courts. Those who hold this position usually say that they are personally against abortion but do not want to impose their personal morality on others. Pro-choice advocates do not like to be confused with pro-abortionists.

The pro-abortion position answers both the moral and the legal question with an unqualified yes. Pro-abortionists not only accept abortion on demand as moral and legal, but advocate abortion as a necessary solution to many problem pregnancies. Because of this they favor liberal abortion laws and rally against any legal efforts to restrict abortions. Pro-abortionists usually call themselves pro-choice and present their arguments for abortion in terms of the rights of the mother to control her own body.

The pro-life position holds that abortion is morally wrong and should be legally wrong. Pro-lifers believe that abortion is killing an unborn baby and hold that no one should have the right to make that choice. Because of this conviction they want the Supreme Court to repeal the decision that gives a woman the legal right to have an abortion. The pro-life position is also concerned about the broad spectrum of other life issues: war, the arms build-up, police brutality, the death penalty, euthanasia, hunger, drug abuse, and so forth. Pro-lifers work to change opinions and laws concerning all of these issues as well as those concerning abortion.

The anti-abortion position is a single-issue position that focuses only on the abortion issue, disregarding and even negating the other life issues. For instance, anti-abortionists support or reject candidates for office based solely on their abortion stance. Some radical anti-abortion groups also use violent tactics, such as blowing up abortion clinics, to effect change. Although a relatively small number of people fit in this category, they receive a great deal of attention from the media. This often colors people’s opinions of the entire pro-life movement.
Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions, [Directors Manual], 1990, pp. 52 & 53

Review Comment

One is tempted to think that Ms. Sawyer is a pro-choice lady who does not consider herself a pro-abortionist…

Homosexual/Propaganda (sample)

Can homosexuals become priests, sisters or brothers?

Of course. Priests and religious choose to take vows of celibacy, and there is no reason why a homosexual person cannot make that choice. To assure that they are freely committing themselves to a life of loving celibacy, the church insists on years of intense spiritual formation for all persons who choose this lifestyle.

What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

The Bible clearly condemns homosexuality activity. However, modern biblical scholarship suggests that the condemnation is often directed toward homosexual acts by heterosexual persons. Contemporary biblical scholars point out that the scriptural texts do not address the question of homosexual orientation as distinct from homosexual activity. They hold that the contemporary question concerning loving sexual activity between consenting adults in a committed loving relationship was simply not addressed in the scriptures. On the other hand, some churches, especially fundamentalist ones, vehemently preach compliance with the biblical passages that condemn homosexuality and oppose and civil legislation to the contrary. The scriptural passages themselves, when interpreted in isolation and restrictively, have contributed to and reinforced homophobic attitudes.

What kinds of lifestyles do gay people have?

Homosexual lifestyles cover an entire range of actions and commitments, just as heterosexual lifestyles do. Many homosexuals marry heterosexuals and raise families; some form long-lasting and committed homosexual relationships; some choose to remain celibate and some of these take vows of celibacy as priests or religious; and some gays, like some heterosexuals, are sexually promiscuous, engaging in casual sex with many partners. Unfortunately society tends to ascribe the promiscuous behaviors of this last group to all homosexuals.

Does having a same-gender sexual experience make one a homosexual?

No. Sociologists report that about one-half of all adult men and one-third of all adult women have at least once engaged in some type of sexual activity with the person of the same sex, perhaps during childhood. Having such a homosexual experience ordinarily plays no part in causing constitutive homosexuality.
Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions, [Directors Manual], 1990, p. 83

Contraception propaganda/values clarification (sample)

Contraception is one of the areas where there is a conflict between the moral teachings of the church and the norms of society. The social community by and large accepts the use of contraception by adults. The Catholic church teaches that the use of most forms of birth control is immoral even for married couples. …

A decision about the use or non-use of contraception is very personal. As in all other areas of sexual practice, each of you will make your own decisions about this important matter. My concern is that the decisions you make will be based on accurate information and will be in keeping with Catholic moral principles.
Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions, [Directors Manual], 1990, p. 62)

I’ll read each commandment for you, then give you time to prayerfully and thoughtfully ask yourself these questions: Is this my commandment: Is this something I choose to use as a guide in my daily life? You will then write the number of the commandment in one of the boxes on the handout to show whether you definitely choose to own it, whether you see it as an ideal but…, whether you are not convinced of its value for you, or whether you reject it altogether.

(Make sure everyone understands the directions. Read each commandment, allowing time for some reflection. Do the I WILL NOTs first, then the I WILLs.)
Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions, [Directors Manual], 1990, p. 72

Vocabulary/ffectiveness Charge (sample)

Birth Control Method – % of Effectiveness

Condom 90% to 64%
Pill 97% to 60%
Diaphragm 82% to 60%
IUD 96% to 3%
Foams and jellies 82% to 60%
Withdrawal 80% to 20%
Rhythm, safe period 75-95% to 40%
Doing it standing up 0%
Praying not to get pregnant 0%
Chastity, abstinence 100%

As you present the above statistics, briefly explain how each of the methods of contraception works. Then explain why the effectiveness rating for teens is so low. The reasons for the “poor use” statistics are explained below. Prepare to explain in your own words
Sawyer, Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions, [Directors Manual], 1990, p. 59

Review Comment

Sawyer’s verbal garbage is pretty disgusting. Why are Catholic children in a so-called “Catholic course” learning about perverted sinful sexual practices? What scientific or theological ground does Sawyer claim that praying is zero percent effective? How does she measure non-pregnancies? Does Sawyer really believe that God has a zero percent ability to alter scientific laws? How does Sawyer explain “the virgin” birth, I wonder…