Teenage Pregnancy in the Philippines

Teenage pregnancy is a real problem no matter what culture or religious belief you have. Some of my woke friends have proceeded to blame the Church's influence in the Philippines for this.

The church in the Philippines is opposed to sex ed being taught in schools. Or that's what we're told. The truth is more nuanced. The sex ed the woke millenials are calling for is basically contraception. In other words, "When you have sex, wear a condom." And this is were you can see the church would have a problem. The stand of the church has always been that sex is for marriage. And since most children attending public schools in the Philippines are Catholic, you can see why the church would be opposed to this. As such, sex ed in the Philippines has always been left to the parents.

But if you look at Catholic schools, you'll find a different story. Catholic schools do have subjects that teach sex ed. It's just not the sex ed the liberals want. Sex ed in Catholic schools goes something like this:

1. Sex is something people do to reproduce.
2. Condoms and other contraceptives are available but they will never be 100% effective and
3. The only way to 100% sure you won't get pregnant is to abstain from sex

None of these three statements are false or controversial. However, liberal lawmakers wish to introduce a sex education scheme that looks like this:

1. When you have sex, wear a condom,
2. This is how you wear a condom, and
3. If you have safe sex, you can't get pregnant or contract an STD.

It doesn't bother itself with what sex is for or the risks of failure. In other words, you have a sex education which teaches the wrong things about sex. You hear the 98% statistic thrown around for the effectivity of a condom. But the actual effectivity of the condom is much lower at 85%. The 98% figure comes only from individual contacts. As such, there is a 2% chance of failure per sexual interaction. And with more interactions, the chance of failure goes up rather quickly.

At best the liberal sex education program is a band aid solution to the problem of people having more children than they can afford. The much better and more sustainable solution is to teach children the truth about sex - the dangers, the pitfalls, and the one thing almost everyone forgets, the purpose of sex.

This is one reason I don't get why the blame automatically goes to the Church. Here's another one. Many of my woke friends say this in other contexts but totally forget it now. The Church doesn't have as much influence as it did way back when. Fewer of the younger generation go to church regularly or even know what the church teaches on certain things. The church doesn't have as much influence now and even when the priest teaches about sex during his homily, most people just ignore it (just as most of my friends do).

It seems whatever problem we experience when it comes to sex or reproduction, the blame somehow finds its way to the church. This is something I don't get. None of the teenage pregnancies were caused by the church. It was caused by ill informed teenagers who get their information from the liberal media.