Should Sex-Ed Programs Continue Teaching Our Children Abstinence Only?

In todays society more and more teens are becoming sexually active, whether we want them to or not. In fact, according to pregnantteenhelp.org the United States has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world. We can not prevent teens from having sexual intercourse but we can choose to provide them with more options and choices to help protect their futures. Although abstinence is the most effective prevention of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, I believe that by changing sex education programs to teach teens all of the precautions before making that big decision will dramatically improve the statistics as well.

For years sex education programs have instilled abstinence upon teenagers, making them unaware of the different ways to protect themselves if and when they do decide to have sexual intercourse. As a result the federal government has decided to fund 28 new and different sex education programs that no longer focus on just abstinence. Instead, these programs are improving the participants academics and getting them involved with different after school activities as well as teaching them about their bodies and handing out contraceptives. By getting involved with after school activities the students will discover their passions in life instead of risking it by opening themselves to the consequences of having sexual intercourse. The contraceptives are not just handed to the students for free in these programs either. In return the students must obtain summer jobs, open bank accounts, save ten percent of their wages, and learn how to balance a checkbook. This will teach students about real life responsibilities and force them to realize that its “not like it is on television”.

Abstinence is the best option to teach our children when speaking to them about sex for the first time. It is the only one hundred percent effective way to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. However, when it comes to teens, they will do what they ultimately believe is right for them. So it is also prominent to teach them about the steps to take in order to protect themselves in a different way just in case they do decide to have sex. That is why the federal government is making the right decision in dividing a grant amongst 28 new programs.

Michael Carrera, one of the programs founders and an adjunct professor at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, believes that these programs are “illuminating pathways for them...to link the (sex) education with all the other things that make a young person whole, it sticks better”. In other words these programs are not only preventing and lowing pregnancy statistics but it is also teaching our children about life not just sex, which ultimately leads them to listen and become more interested with these new programs.