Abstinence: A Failure Of Sex Education

Marissa Keeler November 23, 2015

Olson 10 Pg. “Abstinence is clearly the only foolproof way to prevent pregnancy”, said Dayna Henry, an assistant professor in kinesiology and health education at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. “But programs that don’t teach teens anything are misguided. Students who go through abstinence programs have sex anyway”, stated Henry, “but they don’t have the information and the skills they need to protect themselves.” Abstinence only education disregards the basic human rights of our youth, and lacks the appropriate, accurate, and just principles of sex education; especially because the main purpose is to advertise that other than until marriage, students must not in any way, talk

Despite all of the research proving the programs ineffective, and the failure to reach the previously stated goals, they continuously funded them at the start of 1981 under the Reagan Administration. Under the George W. Bush Administration between 1996 and 2006, their funding for the programs have increased. “Before the child ever gets to school it will have received crucial, almost irrevocable sex education and this will have been taught by the parents, who are not aware of what they are doing.” Abstinence only education is a result of the argument that schools should not be the ones in charge of teaching young kids about something so mature and personal; it should be learned in church or at home. These people also argued that sex education encouraged sexual activity too early and stepped on the toes of parents rights and authorities. During the 1980s, people's opinions began to change. It was proven that sex education did the exact opposite. By providing real life situations, pregnancy rates declined and social relationships between peers grew stronger. It was also discovered that none of the abstinence programs showed evidence of long term success in delaying sexual initiation among teeagers, which was intended to be the advantage over sexual education. The end of the 1980s, led to the AIDS and HIV pandemic, which also helped sex education to

Amongst teenagers ages between 18 and 19, 41% of them states that they know little to nothing about the use of condoms, and 75% states that they know little to nothing about the pill. Uneducated sex, leads to far more worse things than kids receiving educated sex. “I thought I was being responsible, because I was saving myself for marriage…I come from a very religious background” said a woman “and that’s what I was taught. Good girls don’t practice safe sex; they don’t have sex until marriage.” This was after she acquired herpes by having oral sex, because she didn't know she could contract an STD. After all, she considered herself still a virgin. “We weren’t told about that stuff,” she said. “Sex ed was literally a bunch of kids giggling about gross slides and our teacher telling us not to do it. Some of us even signed a paper saying we wouldn’t until we were married. So I only had oral sex, and look where that got me.” Now being the age of 23, she is left with an STD and wishing she was in a comprehensive sex education program rather than the abstinence only program she was forced into at her South Carolina high school. In most cases, it is noted that teachers agree that students need to learn more, it’s really just the policy that needs to be