Of Two Minds on Abstinence

An interesting juxtaposition of "role-model" attitude appears in Bob Kerr's column from yesterday. On one hand:

The kid eagerly raised his hand at the back of the room at the Lincoln Middle School. He had the answer.

"A condom," he said.

Right he was. A condom is the safe way. Abstinence is probably not going to work for most people, Scott Mitchel told the class.

"You can make a choice," he said.

On the other:

He started, as he always does, with "HIV101." He talks of the virus attacking the immune system, of T-cells and how their numbers are a barometer of health or sickness. He points out there are four bodily fluids — blood, breast milk, semen and vaginal fluid — that can transmit the disease. Tears, saliva and sweat cannot. And taking the risk of injecting drugs with a needle is just too stupid to consider.

There are vast differences, of course, between sex and syringe-based drugs, but the difference in this HIV-positive speaker's attitude is striking. "Most people" (Kerr's paraphrase) can't be abstinent — and monogamy is apparently hardly worth mentioning — but injecting drugs — whether with shared or clean needles — is beyond stupid.

I'd suggest that the first step toward making abstinence a feasible for middle schoolers is for adults to tell them that it's something that they can conceivably accomplish.