Are we a nation of laws?

For the last few years, our courts have been engaged in a titanic struggle with the president and with Congress to decide whether we are allowed to imprison people forever, without charges or trial or evidence.

It makes me heartsick that we even have a struggle over this. Our country prides itself on the fact that we aren’t run by a king or a dictator who can put us in prison on a whim, and keep us there while our bodies fall apart and our families grieve. But our leaders claim that the world is so scary now that they have to be able to lock people up forever — without saying why.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said the president couldn’t have a “blank check” for doing whatever he wanted. Well, last week the president’s lawyers were back in court arguing that indeed he can.

They call it “preventative detention for the duration of hostilities.” Translated: Lock you up until we decide there is no more terrorism in the world.

This is not the country I love.

Shame does not make you healthier

Ten experts in teen sexual and reproductive health have signed a letter beseeching Congress not to fund abstinence-only education. It’s simple and clear, so I advise you to go read it.

Everybody agrees that it’s a bad thing for teenagers to have to deal with unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Some people think that the best way to avoid this is to tell teenagers that they shouldn’t have sex, ever, until they get married. Many of those people also think we should lie to teens about how well condoms protect against disease. Other people think that the best way to avoid this is to give students factual information about how pregnancy and disease occur, and how your chance of getting pregnant or getting a disease can be reduced (not eliminated).

On top of these two sets of core beliefs are a whole bunch of fears and assumptions — about whether talking about sex means we are giving teenagers “permission” to have sex, whether they will have better or worse adult (and/or married) sex lives as a result of this information, how accurate the information they are getting from other people is, and whether they are ever likely to be the victim of unwanted sexual contact. Most of all, this is a profound disagreement about respect: Whether teenagers should be obedient to their elders’ wishes, or whether they should be respected as (semi-)independent human beings.

But here’s the thing: long-term, careful reseach studies are showing that abstinence-only education does not prevent those bad results. In other words, teenagers who are told “Don’t have sex until you get married” aren’t behaving any differently, and often they are taking more dangerous risks because of that ignorance.

We’ve studied it. We’ve been fair. The time has come to say that we shouldn’t spend any more taxpayer money on abstinence-only education.

We should rename it, too. It’s really shame-based education. Because the only thing it’s doing is making young people too ashamed to properly prepare for, or get health treatment after, the beginning of their sexual lives.

Please go read the letter. And then send it to your Congressperson.