Harmful to Minors - the perils of protecting children from sex by Judith Levine is a troubling book. I want to accept and believe much of what she describes but I find her arguments weak and often making the opposite case than what she claims.
I can certainly agree that the United States has become more polarized than ever in the past few years and "protection" of children has become almost a national hobbyhorse just when the generation gap is larger and the availability of information to children is greater than ever before. But that is exactly the point of the conservative movement. Ms. Levine sees this advancing "protection" as an attack on the rights of children where conservatives see it as necessary to preserve family values.
A case in point is the discussion around "abstinence only" sex education. Because abstinence isn't for everyone and certainly isn't 100% foolproof (someone recently remarked that the vows of abstinence are broken easier than any condom), Ms. Levine would drop it from sex education all together. That is as foolish as making it the only topic of a sex education course which she rightly condemns.
On the topic of abortion, Levine conflates abortion with contraception as a birth control method without making the distinction that many reasonable people who can accept contraception find abortion to be a last resort not just "another method" of birth control. In so doing, she embodies the exact argument that pro-life activists point to in horror.
There is much to appreciate in this book but much troubling as well.
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