As many Americans know, sex education has been a part of our children's schooling for years to much debate. Many state that abstinence-only education is the way to go, and even the Obama administration recently added their support to this argument. Other citizens claim that teaching safe sex is what's necessary for teens if they want to live healthy lives. My question is this: why do we even have sex education?
When it comes down to it, we need to ask ourselves what our goal is in teaching teenagers about sex in elementary school and beyond. Are we wishing to reduce rates of teen pregnancy, children born out of wedlock, and abortion, or do we want to dismiss an act that almost all of us partake in as unsafe and only allowable within marriage? I feel like in almost all circumstances the former is what we each strive for, and research shows that educating teens on safe sex proves more effective than abstinence-only education in these regards.
The United States has the most teen pregnancies out of any developed nation, with a whopping 22 percent of women claiming to have had a child before they turned 20 years old. This rate is double that of Canada and almost four times that of France. Despite our predominately abstinence-only education, levels of sexual activity and the age with which it begins does not vary much between the U.S. and other nations. Why, then, do we have such a high teen pregnancy rate? Teens in America are less likely to use contraceptive methods when engaging in sexual activity, whereas in most European countries where they predominately teach safe-sex education, the rates for contraception use are much higher.
Our teen pregnancy rate, though still incredibly high, has actually decreased over the past two decades. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) researched this phenomenon and discovered that teens who were educated about safe sex were more likely to use contraception and, the study goes on to say, teens who consistently use contraception account for only 5 percent of all unintended pregnancies.
With data like this, I feel that it's necessary for we as a society to embrace safe sex education. Though it doesn't hurt to continue to tell teens to wait before marriage, this doesn't change the fact that 95 percent of Americans have pre-marital sex. Though abstinence is obviously the most effective form of preventing pregnancies, abortions, and STD transmission, a statistic like that shows that abstinence-only education doesn't produce the desired effect of abstinence.
Opponents of safe-sex education state that the discussion, promotion, and distribution of contraception increases the likelihood of adolescent sexual activity, but studies show this to be false. Teens display no increase in sexual activity when contraception is widely available and heavily included in their education, so what reason is there to not add it to our curriculum? Discussing and educating our youth on safe sex as well as providing them with contraception will not only prevent teen pregnancy, as has been shown in Europe, but will not increase their sexual activity, and will expose them to less STDs.
Why, then, do we teach 84 percent of our teens abstinence education and less than one-third about contraception? Your guess is as good as mine. Ultimately, it's time for we as a society to embrace safe-sex education and supplement it with reminding teenagers that abstinence is the best form of prevention. Though people may find it morally wrong to advocate for eliminating abstinence-only education, I'm certain that everyone can agree the drop in unintended teen pregnancies and abortions would certainly be a positive improvement in the lives of Americans.
https://favs.news/blogs/viewpoints/viewpoints-which-is-more-effective-teaching-safe-sex-or-teaching-abstinenceRead more about this issue in this week's Viewpoints.
