Critique Paper: A Research on the

Nationwide Distribution of Condoms in

Schools
 Issues
• Engagement of Student in Premarital Sex. Providing condoms to students in
public education programs will reduce the incidence of underage pregnancy and
the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. If one accepts the premise that
condoms are an effective means of prevention, it stands to reason that their
distribution could have a significant impact.
• Unplanned Pregnancy. The practice of premarital sex was said to contribute for
some unwanted pregnancy among the students who engaged in sex without
condom. Students who engage in premarital sex are likely to suffer negatively
from long-term physical, emotional, social and moral effects, than students who
choose to wait. In a positive way providing condoms to students in public
education programs will reduce the incidence of underage pregnancy and the
spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
• Degrades Moral Values. Some opponents of sex education and condom
availability programs argue that these programs violate the right of parents to
educate their children about moral behavior and religious values.
 Strengths
• Prevention is better than cure.
• Teen age pregnancy would decrease. It would be more helpful and can prevent
many teens to go through the process of abortion.
• Giving Away Condoms Does Not Encourage Sex. As countless studies have
shown, providing needles to addicts reduces the spread of diseases and the
harms that come from IV drug use. Likewise, providing condoms will only
encourage kids to have Sex safely since they are going to do it anyway.
• A lower rate of STIs means a healthier student body, which means more time
spent in class learning and less time sick at home or at the doctor.
• Accept the truth.
 Weaknesses
• Morally Wrong
• It will establish widespread sexual activities and other risky behavior
• The effectiveness of condoms is overlooked, somehow exaggerated
• School exists to facilitate education which teaches sexual and reproductive
health is good and not to be a dispenser of such unethical doing. Distribution of
condoms at schools would give students a hint or an idea that it is okay to have
sex in schools or anywhere because they practice it anyway.
• Schools are not the only institution capable of educating student about sex
education. It must first be done by the family or relatives of student so that they
will have a proper foundation of what is right and wrong.
 Recommendation

• Condoms should be available at health centers where those who need them or
want them can avail of them for free. Or they can be distributed through LGUs at
targeted places where the likelihood of people engaging in sexual activity is
highest, such as clubs and bars.
• Definitely there are no easy solutions to this problem, but there are alternatives.
One alternative is to promote abstinence through education. Instead of condoms,
the youth or any member of the community should practice sexual abstinence
outside of marriage, to be faithful to one partner when married and value love
and sacredness of sex as a gift of God in marriage.
• Individual and group-level interventions help do this by directly addressing
individual’s knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors related to condom use,
while community-level interventions give a strong emphasis to changing social
norms.
• Structural-level interventions, such as distributing free condoms in diverse
venues, social marketing campaigns, or policy change, can address the social,
economic, and political environments that shape and constrain individual,
community, and societal health outcomes.
• Abstaining from intercourse should be encouraged for adolescents.
• Pediatricians are urged to actively support and encourage the correct and
consistent use of reliable contraception and condoms by adolescents who are
sexually active or contemplating sexual activity.
• In the interest of public health, restrictions and barriers to condom availability
should be removed.
 Conclusion
• First is because presenting condoms to students in a publicly funded environment
presents a potential offence to people from a variety of religions. Catholics and
followers of other religions who do not believe in birth control, and orthodox
practitioners of a number of the world’s religions find the apparent
encouragement of sexual activity an affront to their religious traditions.
• Second, taxpayers should not have to support programs that they find morally
objectionable, even if there seem to be pragmatic justifications for the action.
• Lastly, widespread condom distribution will establish sexual activity as the norm
among young teens, creating peer pressure to participate in sex.
• The plan to distribute condoms in public high schools may stem from good
intentions. But with all due respect, it is unlikely to achieve the goal of reducing
the incidence of HIV/AIDS among our youth nor in the reduction in teenage
pregnancies.
• The issue of condom distribution in schools is a public health issue.
• The educational system is also leaving out the parents that are essential to
education today.
• Condom distribution programs in today’s schools may not have the same effects
as what the government believes. Policy makers should therefore use caution in
generalizing our results to predict the effects of condom distribution programs
for today’s teens.