When it comes to sex, I have a pretty simple philosophy – be safe and have fun. The fun thing is rarely, if ever, a problem, and thanks to my incredibly comprehensive high school health class, I have not yet run in to a situation where I was not sure how to make a safe and healthy choice.

At Madison West High School, we spent at least two weeks my freshman year going over major forms of birth control and sexually transmitted infection protection. My 14-year-old self may have been incredibly squeamish as I listened to my 70-year-old teacher tell my class about the benefits of spermicidal lube, but to this day I remain mercifully free from both infections and children.

Sen. Mary Lazich, R-Waukesha, does not seem to have a problem with a hippie Madison school teaching its pupils to be healthy while engaging in sexual behavior, she just doesn’t want the rest of the state to have to hear it.

“Curriculum in a Madison classroom may not be the best practice in a Superior classroom,” she told legislators at a hearing on repealing Wisconsin’s Healthy Youth Act.

I understand the notion that different communities have different values. I also get that no parents are comfortable with the idea that their children are being taught things they think will help them have sex. But there’s a very critical flaw in that thinking, and to truly understand it we have to go straight to the law.

First, it is important to note that the Healthy Youth Act does not require sex ed in public schools at all. It simply says if a school chooses to offer a sex ed program it must provide medically accurate information on a variety of subjects.

These subjects range from emotional issues that come with sexual relationships to proper use of contraceptives to abstinence. In fact, the law requires that abstinence must be stressed as the absolute best way to prevent pregnancy and STIs.

So how does the bill define medically accurate? It states that information should be supported by research, published in relevant journals and supported by experts in the field. Essentially the law says if schools choose to teach sex ed they must give comprehensive and correct information – it stops programs from lying through omission.

After all, if you’re told that abstinence is the one and only way to prevent STIs and pregnancy, you likely wouldn’t place as much importance on using a condom as someone who knows condoms are commonly cited as over 95 percent effective when used properly.

And how often will people who are never taught about STIs get tested? Probably pretty rarely, meaning someone could walk around passing an infection on for years without realizing they are doing anything wrong.

The young adults planning on abstaining still have that option. The information about staying safe will do nothing except increase their likelihood of being safe in the future. And for those worried that information will lead to more underage sex, let me tell you, there is nothing I have found that turns me on less than my teacher holding a dental dam to her mouth while performing a licking motion.

How is it fair that the children of Superior will be given less comprehensive education than the children of Madison? Should high schoolers in Milwaukee really be taught medically accurate information while students in Sheboygan only get to hear half of it?

The answer is, of course, that students everywhere should be given all the information available, and be offered the chance to make their own choices about their life. To teach anything else is flat out cheating the students of Wisconsin. Those who wish to abstain will not be harmed in any way, but students who want to have sex can now do so with reduced risk of disease and pregnancy.

I’m not going to make the tired ‘teenagers are going to have sex anyway’ argument – although they likely will. But I will argue that parents and legislators owe it to the youth of Wisconsin to give them the opportunity to choose the way they want to live. They’ll thank you for it – even if it does mean watching a woman older than your grandmother mime inserting a diaphragm.

Carolyn Briggs ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in English.