Three million teenagers will contract a sexually transmitted disease and one in three women will become pregnant before they are twenty years old. Teens are contracting sexually transmitted diseases and getting pregnant at an alarming rate causing the government, schools, and parents to scratch their heads. America is the country with the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world. Many are wondering what can be done to stop this. A debate has been going on about whether abstinence only education is doing any good for high school students in America. Abstinence only education teaches teenagers to abstain from all sexual acts until they are married. It does not teach about pregnancy or the different types of contraceptives that are available to prevent pregnancy. On the other hand, there is safe sex education. Safe sex education teaches teenagers facts about intercourse they need to know, acknowledges the potential consequences or risks of sexual behavior, and helps them make better decisions to protect themselves and their bodies.
Background
There are a few major differences between safe sex education and abstinence only. Abstinence only education is all about, “just saying no.” They teach to abstain from all sexual acts until marriage. Safe sex education takes a very different approach. It teaches all about sex, the consequences of sex, contraceptives, different STDs, ways to protect yourself from STDs, pregnancy, and other issues regarding teen bodies. There is a debate against these different sex education programs because some think abstinence only education does not have any effect on teenagers while some believe that safe sex education encourages teenagers to engage in sexual behavior. Over 750,000 girls became pregn...
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"Facts on American Teens' Sexual and Reproductive Health." Guttmacher Institute: Home Page. 2009. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
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"The History of Federal Abstinence-Only Funding." Advocates for Youth. July 2008. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.
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Michaels, Samantha. "Clarification: Abstinence-only Programs Might Work—for Some." Medill Reports. 3 Feb. 2010. Web. 6 Mar. 2015. .
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This is a website page edited by Sue Alford, the Editor and Director of Public Information Services for Advocates of Youth, a nonprofit organization in Washington D.C. This advocacy group promotes efficient sexual education and is dedicated towards STI and HIV/AIDS prevention. Alford contrasts comprehensive and abstinence-only education through a descriptive table that lists how they differ in curriculum, methods of teaching, and attitudes towards sexual activity in adolescents. This source will help me see the distinctions between the two methods of education, allowing me to interpret the pros and cons of each.
The primary argument which most advocates for abstinence only education have is that sex before marriage is immoral, not appropriate and that abstinence is the only completely effective method of preventing teen pregnancy and STI contraction. These advocates also emphasize that condoms are not a sure-fire way of preventing pregnancy and STI contraction. Many of the proponents for abstinence-only education believe that educating youth with information concerning sex and contraception will embolden them to become to begin or increase sexual activity. Such advocates accredit the lowering of teenage pregnancy to abstinence only education (Collins, Alagira, and Summers 12-13).
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).
Students should be informed about more than just “don’t have sex” because eventually it is going to happen and they need to be educated on the proper way to handle the situations. Because students are mostly taught abstinence it has created the situation to where researchers find” Abstinence-only education, instead of reducing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, has made teenagers and young adults more vulnerable to ST...
“Facts on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health.” Guttmacher Institute. Guttmacher Institute, June 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Abstinence-only sex education is one kind of sex education in the U.S. It is a program which aims to keep adolescents from becoming pregnant by emphasizing the importance of abstaining until they get married. According ...
The government likes to pretend that if high school students get taught the “abstinence-only” method they would never think of taking part in sexual activities. Statistically this is incorrect. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “56 percent of high school students are virgins”(Martin). For the 56 percent abstinence only is doing them well, but there are still 44 percent of high school students engaging in sex without knowing the precau...
Another leading cause of teen pregnancy is uneducated youths. The debate over abstinence versus contraceptives has been battled over for the past few years. This debate is making teens become uneducated on the prevention of teen pregnancy. The sex-education policy has changed due to new presidents being in office. According to Clemmitt, “in 2009, the Obama administration ended the Bush administration policy to federally fund only sex-education programs with abstinence as the primary focus” (1). The main goal of this program is to prevent teen pregnancy with the use of abstinence. Clemmitt states, “Abstinence education began receiving federal funding as far back as 1982, in the Adolescent Family Life Act, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, which promoted abstinence and disciplined decision-making among pregnant teen and teen parents” (11). The
As beautifully stated from the well-known group Salt-N-Peppa, “Let’s talk about sex.” More so, let’s talk about sex in our schools. Abstinence-only sex education is sex education based off the belief that teenagers should not have sex until they are married, and this education focuses on shaming teens into not having sex, as opposed to educating teens on safe sex involving the use of contraceptives. It is necessary to teach teenagers about safe sex; therefore, schools should abstain from teaching abstinence-only sex education in schools due to the lack of effectiveness and actual sex education because of the present bias. Abstinence-only sex education should not be taught in schools because it is useless.
Whereas, the Sexual Education program promotes safe sex and knowledge of the sex and it’s consequences. The motto would be, “Knowledge is Power.” As a result of this program has decreased the rate of unplanned pregnancy and sexual disease outbreak. This is why it is argued that Sexual Education should be taught in the public school system.
Martinez, Gladys, Joyce Abma, and Casey Copen. “Educating Teenagers About Sex In The United States”. CDC.GOV. Center of Disease Control and Prevention, 15 Sept. 2010. Web. 09 Feb.2014
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...
...ions on Two Decades of Research on Teen Sexual Behavior and Pregnancy."The Journal of school health 69.3 (1999): 89-94. ProQuest.Web. 7 Nov. 2013.
Teen sex education emphasizes protection and safety. Conflict began at the beginning of the modern era of sex education, roughly around the time that the HIV/AIDS epidemic began in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Sex education teaches that condoms are extremely effective in fighting the spread of HIV as well as many other sexually transmitted diseases. Research shows that this is a much more effective approach than abstinence until marriage education. Abstinence sex education teaches that the only proper sexual activity is within opposite sex marriage, leaving out a group of teens. Safe sex programs are not based on ethnical viewpoints, but are science based and medically accurate. They teach teens about contrace...
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).