Sex Education: Helping Teenagers Make Smart Choices About Sex

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Imagine that you are a parent of a young teenage girl, and she has returned home to tell you that she is now pregnant, or maybe you have a son who has contracted HIV, perhaps you even know a young child who has been abused by a significant other. That teenager will now have to face the consequences of these events for the rest of their lives, consequences that could have been avoided had these teenagers had proper sex education. To many, sex education is a sensitive topic, and because of this students do not receive the essential information that can help to protect them. This allows students to make poor decisions involving their sex life that can negatively affect the rest of their lives. Because parents do not always provide the truth about sex or enough information on it, the best solution is to have mandated sex education classes in school. These classes should begin in primary school and continue through adolescence and they should all have a clear, consistent message.

Lack of sex education can lead to many negative effects that could ruin a teenager’s life. One main negative effect is teen pregnancy, which has negatives on the teen, the baby and the economy. In 2003, 4 out of 10 teenage girls became pregnant before the age of 20. The United States has the highest rate of teen pregnancies with more than 900,000 teen pregnancies a year. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are also a common negative effect. According to the CDC, in 2004, Chlamydia was diagnosed 929,462 times, gonorrhea was diagnosed 330,132 times, syphilis was diagnosed about 8,000 times, hepatitis B was diagnosed 60,000 times and it was estimated that about one out of five adolescents and adults were diagnosed with a genital herpes infection. ...

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