The Controversy of Sex Education Programs in High School

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How many girls have you see around school who are pregnant? Do you ever come to think that they may not have had the “sex talk” with their parents or any sort of sex education at school? “The United Stated still has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any industrialized country. About 40 percent of American women become pregnant before the age of 20. The result is about 1 million pregnancies each year among women ages 15 to 19.” (The Annie E. Casey Foundation) At the age 15-20 most teen males and females don’t have a stable job and are still going to school. There is much at risk when a male and female decide to have sexual intercourse. Having a sex education class would help decrease the teen pregnancy rate. Learning what one can do to prevent a teen pregnancy and the consequences that can lead up to it, will help reduce the amount of sexual activity among teens. Having a sex education class that is required will benefit the upcoming teens of the next generation. Some parents don’t want their teens to have premarital sex and some parents don’t want the schools to be the ones responsible to teach their kids about sex education because they feel like it’s their job. There has been much controversy on sex education being taught at school.
There is not a lot of sex education being taught at school and it’s affecting the outcome of our generation. A sex education class does not mean that the students should pledge to be abstinent because in reality most students will not stay abstinent and will or are currently sexually active. "If we consider the enhanced risk of failure to contracept against the benefit of delay, it turns out that with respect to pregnancy, pledgers are at the same risk as non-pledgers. There is no long-term benefit ...

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...ed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of Advocates for Youth.
Bearman P. [Letter]. New York: Columbia University, 2002. Virginity pledge
Communication: A Series of National Surveys of Teens about Sex. Menlo Park, CA: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2002.
Hauser D. Five Years of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education: Assessing the Impact [Title V State Evaluations] Washington, DC: Advocates for Youth, 2004
Kirby D. Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy.
Washington, DC: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2001
The Annie E. Casey Foundation. “The Facts of Teen Pregnancy: An Overview.” Teens and Sex. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Contemporary. Rpt. From “When Teens Have Sex: Issues and Trends: A Kids Count Special Report.” 1999. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 15 Oct. 2013

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