Abstinence programs disingenuous to reality
By: Jennifer Patterson Staff Writer
Issue date: 3/8/10 Section: Opinion
Sex education in public schools is always a highly debated issue. Having graduated from a Texas public school, myself and students at my former high school were taught about abstinence alone. I remember every year around the same time a group would come in and talk about why abstinence is important. In the back of the room students would joke about the program and its ineffectiveness, mainly because teenage girls at our school were constantly becoming pregnant. The question on my mind at the time was why are public schools not at least informing students on how to protect themselves? It is still a valid question today.
Of the six million pregnancies that occur in the United States each year, half are unintended pregnancies. Of those unintended pregnancies 1.3 million end in abortion. The United States has one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancies for any industrialized country. There is a definite correlation between our attitudes on sex education and pregnancies compared to those of other countries. Countries like Sweden, and France have low rates of teenage pregnancy. They are also far more open minded about their sex education.
Without programs to teach sex education, a majority of teens get their information from either friends, or entertainment sources. This is where myths breed life and spread among a teenage population. Having taken a human sexuality course recently, a video the instructor showed us at the beginning of the class is still fresh in my mind. The video was a documentary about a group of middle class students who contracted syphilis. Syphilis is one of the less common sexually transmitted diseases. The town itself was in uproar about how to better teach students. Even though the outbreak was severe, the town felt like continuing with abstinence programs would be effective.
Many proponents of abstinence programs feel that informing students about how to prevent pregnancy and protect against STDS sends a mixed signal to students and overall downplays the message at hand. Take a look at Texas for instance. Currently the policy on sex education in Texas schools is that only abstinence should be taught. Texas has the fifth highest teenage birthrate in the country. Texas Medicaid pays an average of $420 million dollars on births alone each year. Of that $420 million, 10 percent were to teenage mothers at a cost of $41 million. Given numbers like these I think it is safe to say abstinence alone education is not working in Texas schools. Teenage pregnancy adds a strain to government programs over bustled with problems to begin with.
Of the six million pregnancies that occur in the United States each year, half are unintended pregnancies. Of those unintended pregnancies 1.3 million end in abortion. The United States has one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancies for any industrialized country. There is a definite correlation between our attitudes on sex education and pregnancies compared to those of other countries. Countries like Sweden, and France have low rates of teenage pregnancy. They are also far more open minded about their sex education.
Without programs to teach sex education, a majority of teens get their information from either friends, or entertainment sources. This is where myths breed life and spread among a teenage population. Having taken a human sexuality course recently, a video the instructor showed us at the beginning of the class is still fresh in my mind. The video was a documentary about a group of middle class students who contracted syphilis. Syphilis is one of the less common sexually transmitted diseases. The town itself was in uproar about how to better teach students. Even though the outbreak was severe, the town felt like continuing with abstinence programs would be effective.
Many proponents of abstinence programs feel that informing students about how to prevent pregnancy and protect against STDS sends a mixed signal to students and overall downplays the message at hand. Take a look at Texas for instance. Currently the policy on sex education in Texas schools is that only abstinence should be taught. Texas has the fifth highest teenage birthrate in the country. Texas Medicaid pays an average of $420 million dollars on births alone each year. Of that $420 million, 10 percent were to teenage mothers at a cost of $41 million. Given numbers like these I think it is safe to say abstinence alone education is not working in Texas schools. Teenage pregnancy adds a strain to government programs over bustled with problems to begin with.
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Carolyn Hileman
posted 3/08/10 @ 7:15 AM CST
For you a staff writer to write an editorial as though you were the lone person with any sense what so ever is very demeaning to those who have chosen to save themselves for marriage as a matter of fact you act as though that is silly when really there is birth control available. (Continued…)
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