A retired physician explains why “neutral” sex ed is a myth — and shares the patient story that shows exactly what incomplete information can cost.
I want to tell you about a patient of mine who almost died because of what she’d been taught about her own body.
She was young, recently married, and beyond excited about her first positive pregnancy test. And then she started having pelvic pain.
The ultrasound showed an ectopic pregnancy — the embryo had implanted in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus. This is a medical emergency. The tube cannot support a pregnancy, and if it ruptures, it can be fatal. The treatment is straightforward and well-established. Doctors do it all the time.
She refused.
Her husband refused. And the OBGYN’s office couldn’t convince them.
This wasn’t stubbornness. These were two people who had been taught — very thoroughly, very deliberately — that any kind of pregnancy termination meant causing pain and suffering to a baby. They believed it completely. Because no one had ever told them anything different.
That is what happens when sex education prioritizes “neutrality” over clinical truth. It doesn’t just leave gaps. It fills those gaps with something else. And sometimes what it fills them with can kill you.
“Neutral” isn’t the word you’re looking for
When I talk to parents and educators about Making More Humans, I hear the same request over and over: can you make it neutral?
What they mean, I think, is: can you make it inoffensive? Can you teach the parts that don’t make anyone uncomfortable?
But that’s not neutral. That’s sanitized. Stripped of the parts that actually keep kids safe.
Watered-down information isn’t a compromise. It’s a failure. When we teach kids only the parts of human biology that don’t make adults nervous, we’re not protecting them — we’re leaving them unprepared for the reality they’re going to live in.
And here’s the thing: the clinical truth isn’t political. It isn’t moral. It isn’t taking sides in any cultural argument. Biology doesn’t care about your politics or your religion or what you were taught at home. It just describes what actually happens in the human body.
That’s not a liberal position or a conservative one. It’s just accurate.
Who I actually am
I know what some people are thinking right now. Here comes the agenda.
So let me be direct about who I am.
I’m Christian. My family is active in our church — ELCA Lutheran. My husband drives the van to pick up seniors from nursing homes once a month. My kids sing in choirs, play instruments, stream the service live. Faith is not an abstract thing in our house.
I also believe I am not God. And if what I think is true about the world doesn’t match what the science shows — the science isn’t wrong. My assumptions are.
When I say I don’t include morality in the science, I mean that biology doesn’t take sides. My job is to explain how the body works. What someone does with that information is their choice, not mine. That’s not moral relativism. That’s the difference between a physician and a judge.
Clinical science doesn’t have social opinions. It has biological truths. And those truths are the same regardless of what you believe about them.
What it actually took to save her life
Back to my patient.
Her mother finally called the urgent line and brought them both to my office. The OBGYN called me on the way and walked me through exactly what the ultrasound showed.
I spent over an hour teaching basic female anatomy to three adults who had never been taught it. What a fallopian tube is. Where it sits. What it does. How a fertilized egg ends up there by accident — not by choice, not by failure. Just cells ending up in the wrong place.
Then I had to explain the heartbeat.
Because yes, there was a flicker of cardiac activity. And they had been taught that a heartbeat means a baby — a person, a suffering creature who would feel what was happening.
But that is not what clinical truth says.
The heart is the first organ to form because you need something to move blood before anything else can develop. The brain comes much, much later. At this stage there is no brain, no awareness, no capacity to feel anything. I showed them a video of heart cells beating on their own in a petri dish — because that’s a real thing, and I needed them to see that cardiac activity and personhood are not the same thing.
By the end of the hour they were all in agreement. She got the treatment she needed. She survived.
And then they were angry. Not at me. At the fact that they had been given inaccurate information — presented as moral truth — and had nearly paid for it with her life.
Her husband came back for a second appointment. He wanted to understand all of it. Periods. Conception. Pregnancy. How it actually works. They both said they wished they’d known sooner.
Scare tactics are not the alternative
The answer to “neutral” sex ed isn’t graphic or frightening sex ed. That’s not clinical truth either.
I’ve known people — especially women — who were so traumatized by how they were taught about sex that they became afraid of their own bodies. When human sexuality, for most people, is a normal and meaningful part of being human. Teaching it through horror and shame doesn’t protect anyone. It just creates a different kind of damage.
Clinical truth is the actual alternative. Not neutral. Not sanitized. Not scary. Just accurate, complete, and taught without the scolding.
When I say Clinical Truth, I mean three things: accurate information protects kids — knowledge is the real safety net. Biology taught without a moral lens removes shame. And science doesn’t take sides — not politically, not religiously. It’s just true.
My patient almost died because no one had given her that. Her husband almost lost her for the same reason.
That is what “neutral” costs. And that is why I teach clinical truth instead.
If you want to learn — and teach — this in a way that’s clinically accurate and shame-free, go to docrobinschool.com/truth.
Educational information only; not medical advice. If you have concerns about your health or your child’s health, please talk with a qualified clinician. If symptoms are severe or urgent, seek urgent/emergency care.
