How to Approach the Birds and the Bees
Magee Jordan
Rowan-Cabarrus Community College
How to Approach the Birds and the Bees
Sexual education plays an important and crucial role in helping educate young people on how to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. However, not all schools teach about contraceptives because some states refuse to teach about anything other than abstinence. In fact, some schools don’t even touch on the subject of sexual education at all. Others who object to sex ed. do so based on religious beliefs, stating that all pre-marital sex is sinful. How are children and young adults supposed to protect themselves from the life-altering consequences that can come from being sexually active if they aren’t ever taught how? Don’t people have the right to know how their bodies work and how to prevent from getting STDs and unplanned pregnancies? How can parents trust schools to teach their children about every other subject except sex? Isn’t it better to be over-informed than not informed at all? Better safe than sorry, right? All public schools should be required to teach other options along with abstinence when teaching sex education, due to the fact that states that don’t tend to have higher teen pregnancy rates, children are starting to have sex at an earlier age, and having sex at an early age, teen pregnancies, and STDs are having huge effects on society and the ones that are affected by it personally.
There are two main types of curriculums when it comes to sexual education, comprehensive and abstinence-only programs. Up until recently, programs that met strict abstinence-only requirements were the only type of sex education programs that were eligible to receive federal funding (“Comprehensive sex education:,” 2009). Abstinence-only programs teach students the importance of saving themselves for marriage and decision-making skills (Stoeltje, 2012). However, these programs have been proven ineffective and they have been known to censor and exclude very important information that could help prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies. In a congressionally authorized study of four of the most popular abstinence-only programs, they were proven ineffective by mathematical findings. Students that took part in these programs weren’t any more likely to abstain from sex than other students. Also, in December of 2004, the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Government Reform, led by Representative Henry A. Waxman, released a report that showed that 80 percent of the most common federally funded abstinence-only programs used curriculums that altered information about the effectiveness of contraceptives, misreported the risks of abortion, blurred the differences of religion and science, and contained basic scientific errors. Some abstinence-only programs also have their students take virginity pledges, but researchers have found that 88 percent had broken their pledges and had sex before marriage (“Comprehensive sex education:,” 2009). In addition, the states with the highest teen pregnancy rates are more often than not the states that teach abstinence-only policies or don’t teach any form of sexual education at all. Due to these factors some abstinence-only programs are starting to address the use of contraceptives in a more neutral way, these programs are called abstinence-plus programs. Many parents are supporting this idea as well, which is gradually moving these states into the right direction (Culp-Ressler, 2012).
The other form of sexual education, comprehensive programs promote abstinence and the use of contraceptives (Stoeltje, 2012). These programs unlike the abstinence-only programs have been proven effective at reducing teen pregnancies, delaying students from becoming sexually active, and increasing the use of contraceptives (“Comprehensive sex education:,” 2009). Studies are helping support this claim, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that teens who receive some form of comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or impregnate another person (Beadle, 2012). Another study conducted by Advocates for Youth, showed that out of twenty-six effective programs twenty-three were identified as programs that included comprehensive sex education as at least one factor of the program (“Comprehensive sex education:,” 2009). It’s safe to say that a lack of information is one of the main reasons teens are getting pregnant at such an early age.
