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The negative effects of teenage pregnancy
Effect of teenage pregnancy
Effect of teenage pregnancy
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The first time I learned about sex was in middle school, in an after school program that was run by a strict Catholic leader, who also ran a center in my town that was exclusively pro-life, but provided health check ups for pregnant women. I did not know at the time that this program was extremely biased, and only preached abstinence. I remember the instructor telling us a story about when she had sex in high school with a guy who she still sees sometimes, and their sexual encounter remained so prevalent in her memory, that it completely ruined any interaction they could have afterwards. I remember thinking how embarrassing that must be, because sex in this program was made to seem like it was something to be ashamed of. My sister also was …show more content…
I left that class feeling as if I did not really learn anything, except for what I had somewhat already knew. This was that the traditional idea of sex involving a penis and vagina, and if you wanted to avoid diseases or pregnancy then a guy should put on a condom. My school completely disregarded all the other ways one could have sex and contract or avoid diseases, and all the other forms of birth control, such as the pill, the female condom, the patch, and other valuable pieces of information that many girls in my class, including myself, could have benefited from. Abstinence was also still trying to be pushed during these lessons as the “best method” to prevent pregnancy and disease, however, it was not a logical or reasonable method either. I did not know where I could access contraceptives or other sex related resources. I did not even know what lube was or that it could ease penetration and reduce any pain during sex. We were not told that masturbation was also a healthy alternative to releasing any sexual …show more content…
This means that despite all of the messages discouraging sex and unprotected sex, she was still having unprotected sex at the same time she was hearing these messages. My sister ended up having an abortion, even while being pro-life due to the middle school program that we were both in, that strongly discouraged against abortion. After the abortion, my sister, even now is strongly and confidently pro-choice because she realized just how important and liberating women’s rights to their body is, and how much abortion saved her from likely, a life of poverty and missed opportunities, simply because our family was not well off as it was. Even during this time, I also lost my virginity because some of the messages sent during this class that seemed as if we were being scared out of having sex, did not scare me enough to not lose my virginity with my boyfriend. My school’s teen pregnancy rate kept skyrocketing as well, also, while the county my town is in ranked, number one in the state for chlamydia. My school failed because it did not teach us students how to have a healthy sex life, instead, it attempted to brainwash us and tell us that that sex should only be reserved for straight, married couples, who were ready to have kids. Sex was made to seem abnormal and deviant. Our country
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.
The family talks openly about sexuality and the sexual experiences of other teenagers, but the two daughters do not talk to their mother about their own sexuality. The mother of these two girls believes that her daughters are not ready for sex, but in reality one of the girls has already had sex and is struggling with the decision of whether she should tell her mother or not. In America our society has created a fear surrounding the discussion of sex and this inadvertently leads to a lack of information as children must discover the facts about sexuality from unreliable resources. When sex education does occur within the school setting the extent of this lesson focusses on the negative aspects of sexual experience such as sexually transmitted infections. Rather than taking the opportunity to teach comprehensive sex education and decrease negative consequences of sex, a staggering amount of schools in America teach abstinence-only education. Although studies have found that these programs do not in fact work and that America has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the industrialized world, schools still accept these
Today’s young Americans face strong peer pressure to be sexually active and engage themselves in risky behaviors (Merino 100-109). Anyone deciding to have sex must first think about all the risks involved. Kekla Magoon, author of Sex Education in Schools, says that “half of all teens aged 15 to 19 years old in the United States have had sex” (Magoon 64-65). It is currently not required by federal law for schools to teach Sex education and those few schools that do teach Sex education have the decision to determine how much information is allowed. Advocates from both sides of the Sex education debate agree that teens need positive influences in order to make practical decisions (Magoon 88-89). Opponents of Abstinence-only education believe it fails because it does not prepare teens for all the risks of sex (Magoon 64-65).
In May 2006 the silence cries of Kaylib Neal began to fill the delivery room as young Kizzy Neal slightly tilts her head with the energy she has left to take a glace at her new son. Although this moment is one of the happiest times of Kizzys life, she still wishes she could have waited to experience this moment at a later time in her life. At the age of only thirteen, Kizzy is one among the thousands of teenage girls who become pregnant each year in the United States. According to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 34% percent of young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20. Eight in ten of these teen pregnancies are unintended and 79% are to unmarried teens. There are many preliminary causes for such a high In Kizzy’s case, the blame is put on the lack of sexual education within her school. She claims that because she did not received adequate information on this subject, she was unaware of what she was getting herself into. The question is: will the opportunity to experience sex education classes make a difference in preventing teen pregnancy? Sexual education, in a broad sense, is a series of courses taken by adolescents throughout their school years in order gain a better understanding of aspects that pertain to sexual activity. Beginning as early as third grade, the students learn what sex is, what its consequences are and how to prevent those consequences. Being of the main consequences of engaging in sexual activity, Teen Pregnancy is commonly spoken about within these classes. Given that teens are being informed of this consequences within accurate sex ed. Classes, providing comprehensive classes in a school environment does not cause an increase in teen pregnancy.
In the past, sex was something that people tried to avoid talking about it, neither less teaching. Sex became a mystery, and a mystery would always trigger people’s nerves, especially teenager’s curious minds. That leads teenager at that time, who had no idea about sex, wanted to have sex to know about it. And when they had sex without any protection, they easily got STDs or HIV or even pregnancy. The case awakens society that sex education must be taught for students at the very first when they enter middle schools. But the way sex was taught those days was very much different from today. In the article “What the sex educators teach” posted on the Opposing View Point in Context website, Dana Mack has written about her experience when taking sex education class when she was a teen: “At the age of ten or eleven, girls and boys were herded into separate rooms - usually in the company of a parent. There, in industrial-gray pictures and solemn monotones, they were introduced to the world of gametes, ovaries, and menstruation. Not exactly titillating material, this reproductive information.” (Mack). Back in those days when sex was a newly revealed topic and sex education program had just been operated, people are still very shy to talk about sex and they often avoid having this kind of
In today’s school systems, students are taught the basics: math, history, language arts, and science. However, what they are also “taught” is sex education. Currently, when people think of how they were taught sex education in high school, most would say something along the lines of that they were taught the anatomy, and they were taught to never actually use it. This approach to sex education has been going on for decades, and despite being proven unsuccessful countless times, continues to be taught in this fashion because this is what makes the people happy. There have been numerous attempts to try and change this system to something that would benefit teenagers, but these attempts never were able to be put into affect due a laundry list
Currently, sex education in schools is primarily centered on the distribution of information without elaborating about the moral implications dealing with sex. Teenagers are well versed on things such as how long sperm lives inside the body and can identify all of the workings of the female reproductive system. However, they are still getting pregnant and still contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Anna Quindlen examines this trend in her essay, “Sex Ed”. Quindlen points out that it is the moral implications of sex that have been left out of the curriculum and it is the responsibility of parents to make those moral connections with their children (277). Understanding the morality of sex, she argues, may help teenagers to make more informed decisions on taking the next step towards sexual activity. They must understand that “…when you sleep with someone you take off a lot more than your clothes” (Quindlen 277). Sex is not simply a...
Federal funding for sex education is mostly given to abstinence-only programs where shame is one of the best things students learn. One way sexual education currently instills shame in students, specifically female students, is to compare a girl who is a virgin to a piece of tape, an apple, or a piece of candy and have all the boys in the class touch, bite, lick, the object until it no longer provides the service it originally could. This illustrates to girls and boys that young girls who decide to have sex, at all or with multiple partners before marriage, can no longer be as worthy, as a sticky piece of tape, an uneaten apple, or an untouched woman (PURITY MYTH 33?). In addition to shaming students who have decided to have sex, they shame others who are masturbating
encompasses sexual development, reproductive health, interpersonal relationships, affection, intimacy, body image, and gender roles.” Sex education discusses important aspects of reproduction, sexuality, and just growing up in general in a physical and emotional sense. One would have to wonder though; does sex education actually serve its purpose? Does it enlighten teens enough about sex and the consequences, to the point where you can actually tell the difference between those who are sexually educated and those who are not? According to a study done bye Coyle (1999) sex education no matter where, at home or in school, and no matter the program does indeed help decrease the amount of teens having unsafe sex. Based on information from that same study about 3 million teenagers a year get an STD, and roughly 10% of adolescent females ages 15-19 get pregnant every year unintentionally. In an article from The Alan Guttmacher Institute (1999) there has been a 20% drop in female pregnancies between n 1990 and 1997 and the drop has continued, they have stated that the reason for this i...
Sex education in public schools is the first of the four topics I will be discussing. This topic was a no brainer for me to choose, due to the fact that I grew up in the public and private school systems, and am able to connect my personal experiences with the opinions I hold today. Although sex education was not very prominent throughout my educational experience, I believe all students would greatly benefit from the knowledge one can acquire through a diverse sexual education experience. My first experience with sex education came in sixth grade (I’m 22), and unfortunately is the only experience I’ve had, while in the public school system. Although I cannot recall this event in its entirety, I can still remember the minor details.
Have parents lost all control in the decision of when to teach their children about sex and sexual matters? In some states across America, it sure seems that way. Over the past decade, seventeen states have adopted mandates to teach comprehensive sex education, and thirty more have supported it (internet). West Virginia schools have implemented sex education in most high schools, but it may seep even further down, possibly to your community's elementary schools. While people are divided and confused in their concerns of this class being taught in grade schools, I disagree with the course being studied from kindergarten through third grades. Sex education should only be taught when a child inquires or one feels it is time for the child to know.
Sex education in our schools has been a hot topic of debate for decades. The main point in question has been whether to utilize comprehensive sex education or abstinence-only curriculum to educate our youth. The popularity of abstinence-only curriculum over the last couple of decades has grown largely due to the United States government passing a law to give funding to states that teach the abstinence-only approach to sex education. But not teaching our children about sex and sexuality is not giving them the information they need to make well educated decisions. Sex education in our schools should teach more than just abstinence-only because these programs are not proven to prevent teens from having sex. Children need to be educated on how to prevent contracting sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies and be given the knowledge to understand the changes to their bodies during puberty. According to the Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Kindergarten-12th Grade from the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), comprehensive sex education “should be appropriate to age, developmental level, and cultural background of students and respect the diversity of values and beliefs represented in the community” (SIECUS).
The need for sex education is very questionable in today’s society. An article by Pamela DeCarlo, from the Centre for AIDS Prevention Studies, discusses why sex education is needed in schools. She asks why education on this subject is needed and if will help or hurt today’s children. Her view of the issue is that kids do need to have education to help to protect them but that it isn’t enough to prevent them from receiving STD’s and becoming pregnant. “Knowledge alone is not enough to change behaviors.” DeCarlo also says that, “Programs that rely mainly on conveying information about sex or moral precepts-how...
Before moving on, one must know that sex education is about, but not limited to the discussion of sexual intercourse. As a Buzzle article states, it involves a multitude of topics that introduce human sexual behaviors such as puberty, sexual health, sexual reproduction, sexuality, and more (Iyer). If formally received in school, these topics are brought up and discussed at age-appropriate times over the course of children’s junior high and high school education. Moreover, as I have introduced earlier, the way sex education should be taught is divided into two approaches. It is between taking either a conservative, abstinence-only approach or a more liberal, comprehensive approach. Abstinence-only education, approaches students by stressing the importance of “no sex before marriage” as be...
As a child we are told that we can be anything we want. We are told that if we wanted to be a fireman, policeman or astronaut, we can become it. We are told that if we have the passion and desire for something, we will achieve it. But what if I wanted the freedom to express myself to the utmost? We are told we have the right to be anything we want, but ourselves. When I was a child I wanted to take guitar classes, but my mother put me in figure skating classes because it was the girly thing to do and I had no say because I was merely a child. When I realized I liked the same sex in middle school I had no voice because I was a child who was exploring her sexuality. Age eighteen and I still have no say because I’m still a child who is confused. I knew that my voice would be silenced and I was going against the norm of society. The church says gays are an abomination. The government says gays aren't allowed to marry. Every day on the news there another image of a gay student who committed suicide due to bullying. I wasn't allowed to be myself because I knew being gay was not looked upon lightly by others. I hid myself from my friends and most importantly my parents due to the fear of society constriction against me. I was strong enough not to end up on the news but the right to be myself was taken away.