Lucille Yuen

I am deeply troubled to learn that you are abolishing abstinence education from Ohio’s public schools. I believe that doing this is grossly unfair to our youth. They need respect for the marriage bed reinforced, not the opposite. Practicing abstinence before marriage puts a discipline in place that affects one’s attitudes toward others, protects one’s psychological and physical health, and will help preserve one’s marital relationship later.

Marriage and the family is the bedrock of society. It is within these institutions that people have the best chance to be emotionally healthy, learn how to behave and become homogenous members of society at large. People fail the institutions, not the other way around. I believe impressionable young people should receive moral reinforcement at school for abstinence before marriage not only to protect them emotionally and physically on the personal level, but to preserve the family. Our young people will carry the torch as adults from the past into the future. What they do with marriage and family will either tend to preserve their local communities and more broadly, keep the nation or not. Sexual abstinence is about self control, respect for others in relationships and responsible provision for the product of sexual union. Truthfully, our young people need to learn about that more than ever. There are many forces pulling at them today that are confusing, that are indeed sometimes even counter-productive and damaging.

Therefore, I believe measures you have initiated to dismantle abstinence education since taking office do not serve Ohio’s public school students well. In fact, it is a travesty for our children and for the future of Ohio, and I urge you to restore funding for Abstinence Education to encourage the important, truthful message that avoiding casual sex is the only sure way to avoid the physical and emotional risks associated with irresponsible behavior.