Topic > Abstinence Education - 1013

The United States has the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies of any industrialized nation that put young adolescents at risk. An estimated 20,000 new STD cases reported each year are from people under the age of 25, and 82% of all teen pregnancies are accidents accounting for one-fifth of all annual unintended pregnancies (CDC 2006) . As a result, the government must stop funding and promoting abstinence-only programs and start focusing on comprehensive sexuality education. Comprehensive sexuality education according to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US (SIECUS) provides a comprehensive message by teaching age-appropriate and medically accurate information on various sexuality-related topics including, but not limited to, anatomy , pregnancy prevention strategies and gender roles. Therefore, comprehensive sexuality education is the most effective protection against teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and infections. Only providing various information and interventions to adolescents allows them to make responsible decisions about their sexual behavior and sexual activity. Some argue that abstinence is the only way to prevent teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Those who believe this argue that safe sex does not exist because condoms have an 85-98% effectiveness rate against sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancy. They state that abstinence has a 100% effectiveness rate against these problems, making it the best and only solution for reducing risky sexual behavior. This may be true, but a case study between Harvard, Cambridge and John Hopkins University proves otherwise. The experiment consists of a national report… in the middle of a document… of evidence showing that abstinence programs work, and by eliminating funding, we jeopardize the prevention of teen pregnancy. John Jemmott, a health psychology specialist, created a curriculum in which 662 African American students from four public middle schools were randomly assigned to take one of the following programs: health course, abstinence course, or a health-focused program. teaching safe sex. The abstinence course covered HIV, abstinence and ways to resist the pressure of sex, while the safe sex course talks about contraceptives. Over the next two years, about 33 percent of students who went through the abstinence program began having sex, compared to about 52 percent who learned about safe sex. The findings are supposed to restore federal support for abstinence-free programs, which will then lead the government to continue supporting sex education.