Controversy Over Condoms, Safe-Sex Advice for Students

(As reported in) “High School Students Get Condoms, Safe-Sex Advice” (Nov. 14), the organization ACT-UP was passing condoms out to high school students. Many of these kids’ parents were upset because they felt that teaching safe sex was promoting sex altogether.

I totally disagree. I do agree that teaching abstinence should be strongly stressed, but along with that should be a lesson on birth control and sexually transmitted disease prevention.

Teen-agers are loaded with wild sex drives, hormones and curiosity, all of which are new and confusing for them. True, they all should wait until they meet that special someone they want to spend the rest of their lives with, but what if they don’t wait? Are you sending your child off to a death sentence?

AIDS is a death sentence and unsafe sex is a sure way to get it. After all, some people have guns in their homes for protection. Just because they have a gun doesn’t mean they go off and shoot it; it is just for protection in case a threat should arise. It is the same story for condoms.

MEGAN McGARVEY, Laguna Niguel