To Educate or Not to Educate?

The majority of today’s youth are only being told half of the story when it come to sex. Forty-nine of our fifty states have federally funded “Abstinence Only” sex education in their public schools. By only teaching that sex should be saved until marriage adolescents are not being exposed to the information they need in order to make informed decisions about their own sex lives. As a result of this, if young adults do chose to become sexually active, they will not know how to or have the tools necessary to have safe sex of any form. By establishing comprehensive sex education in all schools the youth of America will not only learn about ways to effectively protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy, but also about healthy relationships and decision making skills. Comprehensive sex education would allow America’s youth to be informed and responsible for the choices they make concerning sex.
Sex education is not a new phenomenon in America, sex ed. began in 1913 when outbreaks of syphilis arose on the east coast. High school students were urged not to have sex until marriage and were taught to be scared of sex and this, then deadly, disease. Sex was not brought up in public schools again until the 1980’s when America faced the first reported cases of the AIDS virus. Instead of receiving education about the AIDS and HIV viruses, and how to protect themselves from contracting them, young adults were once again scared into abstinence. It isn’t just STD’s and STIs that should be examined in sex ed. classes. A lot of what young people need to know about is pregnancy prevention since 47% of young adults are engaging in sex before marriage. Pregnancy rates reached a high of 111 of every 1000 girls in 1980, and kept growing until 1990 when it reached 117 to 1000 girls. These numbers are extremely too high and there are things that our government can do to help lower these percentages.
Although pregnancy and abortion rates in the U.S. have slowly been decreasing, our numbers are extremely high compared to those of Canada and Western Europe. Countries such as France, Germany, Canada and the Netherlands all teach a form of comprehensive sex education to their youth. In turn, the rates of pregnancy, STDs, and abortions are more than 50% lower than the rates of the United States. Western European countries and Canada make information about safe sex and contraceptives readily available to their young adults. These countries also encourage kids to talk about, and ask questions related to, sex. The proof that this type of sexual education works is in the statistics; American women are three times more likely to get an abortion than women in Germany, and 38% more likely than those in Canada. American teens, of both sexes, have 10% higher chance of contracting gonorrhea than Canadian teens. Some steps have been taken to reduce teen pregnancy in America. California is the only state to teach comprehensive sex ed., and since their action was taken, teen pregnancy has gone down 38% in eight years. Many young adults in the U.S. are not getting the message, or not choosing to live the abstinence-only lifestyle, or there needs to be another options for those teens.
Many parents even support their children learning some form of comprehensive sex education. 90% of American parents support their children being taught that abstinence is the only 100% safe way to avoid STDs and pregnancy, in their sex ed. Yet of that 90%, 74% of parents also want their kids learning comprehensive sex education in addition to promoting abstinence. A larger argument of the parents who do not want their teens being exposed to comprehensive sex ed. say this form of sexual education encourages teens to have sex. The fact of the matter is that teens who pledged to stay abstinent until marriage have the same amount of sexual partners and experiences then those who did not pledge. The only difference is those who did pledge waited 18 months to longer, than those who did not pledge, to first engage in sex. Another claim against comprehensive sex ed. programs is that sex education should be left at home, allowing the parents to decide when and what is appropriate for their kids to know. The fact of the matter is sex education is in schools, but the classes offered in most school are misleading and only telling part of the truth about sex. Another problem with sex being left at home is that many parents do not want to tell their kids many of the harsh realities about sex. Also in many cases teens are not comfortable enough talking to their parents about sex to ask the questions they really want and need answered. By allowing abstinence only education to continue, in high schools, students will be missing out on information that can be used for the rest of their lives.
Although many parents do support their teens being taught absitence-plus education, those for and opposed do not understand what is really being taught in these classrooms. In an abstinence-only classroom 53.7% of their classroom time is spent on discouraging sex before marriage. Instead of teaching the correct way to protect one’s self from STDs and pregnancy, these teens are being taught not to engage in sex at all until a commitment is made legally. It is unrealistic to only teach no sex until marriage since almost half of American high-schoolers say they have already engaged in sex. In “abstinence plus” education, 25% of their curricula is focused on students learning about communication and refusal techniques. Abstinence-only classrooms only spend 10.9% of time on this subject. Abstinence-plus education also focuses 6% of its energy on teaching students about the biology and reproduction that are involved when engaging in intercourse, a subject which abstinence only education skips right over. By only experiencing abstinence-only education, young adults are not getting the information they need to lead healthy and safe lives, before or during marriage, when it comes to sex.
I am not saying go out grab a box of condoms and have a wild Friday night. That is not the way I live and I would never suggest that to any teen. I support people who choose to wait until marriage to have sexual intercourse, but that is not what everyone believes and chooses to do so options should be readily available so young adults can make the right decisions for them and engage in safer sex.