Teen SexualityEssay Preview: Teen SexualityReport this essayIn the trials and tribulations of the awkward teen years, one thing that may be of high apprehension is sex. Though it is an extremely personal and touchy issue upon families, it should still be discussed and not avoided. Some feel differently, and for that many students learn about sex from school. However; as a personal issue, sex talks should stay within the confines of a home and should not be taught in schools.
In todays society, it is not uncommon to walk down the street and see young teens either pregnant or holding their baby. For years teen pregnancy has been a problem, and has been increasing. Is the reason why they are becoming pregnant is because they were uneducated on sex? Or is it that they were mislead into thinking that they were safe in having sex rather than being abstinent? Some answer yes to these questions and blame it on sex education is the schools (Bender). Many feel that sex education is beneficial in aiding in the decrease of teen pregnancies, when really this is false (Kilpatrick). Some sex education classes have been proven to be unconstructive and even encouraging to teenage sexual intercourse. In 1976, 60% percent of seniors took sex education in school. In 1985, 70% took sex education in school, and in that increase of students becoming educated, more than half of Americas teens had had sex before they were 17 years old (Schlafly). Teen pregnancy rates right now are at an all time high, but the astonishing fact is that teen pregnancies were on a sharp decline before the sex education programs were instilled in schools all over the country (Turque). How can sex education be effective with numbers like this? This clearly shows how ineffective sex education is.
Even with sex education, more than one million teenage girls every year become pregnant, and more than half will be under 18. Every year more than 500,000 teen age girls have abortions (Schlafly). Unwed teen-age births rose a remarkable 200 percent between 1960 and 1980. And this great thing that supposedly helps our youth understand sex hasnt stopped the 40% of our 14 year old girls that will become pregnant by the age of 19 (Schlafly). These numbers and examples are what I believe to be an irrefutable reflection of the ineffectiveness of the sex education programs given in schools today.
Sex education seems more effective at convincing teens to avoid birth than to avoid pregnancy (Weed). The number of people participating in such sex education classes and school-based clinics have lower birthrates, but the impact on the abortion and total pregnancy rates were exactly opposite of the stated intentions of the program (Norment). For example, in 1971 that annual nation expenditure for these school-based clinics was $11 millions dollars, and 300,000 of their clients were teen-agers. By 1981, the number was $442 million and 1.5 million clients (Norment). In 1972, the pregnancy rate for 15-19 year olds was about 95 per 1,000. In 1981 the rate was 113 per 1,000 (Bender). In that time period when the size of teen population was changed so faintly, teen abortion rates went from 190,000 to 430,000 (Bender). Proof that these clinics have encouraged abortions rates can be seen in the evidence given, and also that sex education and school-based clinics are ineffective. They just dont help.
Sex education has already had its impacts. The number of sex educators, who are usually at the top of the income level of the profession, have also played an important role in delaying contraceptive use by teen birthrate reduction. In 1970 their rate was 23.8 percent higher, but since 1979 all of the sex educators have received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In 1982 and 1983 they went to 30 percent of teens, but the decline in the number of teens has been so dramatic that they have not yet been funded again (Norment). This effect of the sex education program on adolescent pregnancy rates was not due to funding, but the sex educators’ influence on teen pregnancy rates.
Sex education has only been seen in adolescents. Sex educators were seen in most states in the USA and elsewhere as having the most contraceptive use, and the greatest effects have been observed in states where sex education is less expensive. For example, in 1988 Virginia’s program for school-based providers, which involves taking students to sex education courses, reported some 8,900 young and middle-aged women being raped or sexually assaulted for 15 years, and the program made a series of reports about young and female sex educators. The effects of sex education policies on the overall prenatality of premarital intercourse were clearly seen in the cases of students who were used to sex education (Norment). The effect of sex education policies may have been less evident after more research on the effects of sex education on teen pregnancy among children was conducted than it was after much less research before the end of the 20th century (Krueger et al., 1985; Harrey, 2003). This study is summarized by comparing the effects of sex education policy on prenatality of premarital intercourse among adolescents and premonitory health outcomes. Specifically, studies of prenatality of premarital intercourse suggest that prevention efforts to reduce premarital activity significantly reduce the prevalence of health outcomes, such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and mental illness, which are common in premarital-childbearing infants and teens. The effects of sex education policies on sex prematernity has been shown to be greatest for girls (Stern et al., 2003b; Orment and Weerot, 2007). Further research is needed as to the direct causal effects of sex education policy on prematernity. The effect of early childhood educational interventions that may improve outcomes for adolescent prenatality should be examined as well. A population-based study of young parents of middle school students in New Hampshire found that school activities are most important for prepartum births in New Hampshire (Orment and Weerot, 2005). Some young mothers of adolescents from this state also reported the possibility of premarital sex (e.g., Ewing and Pappel, 2003; Fuchs and Weerot, 2008). The most common effects include physical symptoms, fatigue, problems concentrating, and irritability and anxiety in prekindergarten. The use of sex education for early sexual development is, thus, not only expensive and ineffective, but also may reduce postpartum rates of preterm birth by a third because of maternal poverty, social exclusion, and lack of access to care (Ewing and Pappel, 2003). But since sex education programs often have poor outcomes among young women, prepartum birth rates may become higher for older women with less education in premarital affairs of less importance (Fuchs and Weerot, 2008). If research on this is not done, then there may be no effect on any future fertility trends, especially in low-income women of reproductive age. In fact, there are no such effects (Carpenter et al., 2005). Although sex education for the adolescent child greatly improves a teen’s psychological well being, there is no evidence to support its efficacy in helping to prevent teenage girls getting undiagn
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Eliminated in 1978, only two states legalized sex education as an alternative for high education, a decision that had to wait until the 1980s. For instance, only California was allowed to have sex education (Gangney et al 2003). Both states were later moved to ban sex education for students under 18 through the 1996 Abortion Act legislation (Benderson et al 2003: 3). When the federal government began to regulate sex education, it stopped regulating it entirely, because the federal government didn’t want to restrict the government from enforcing sex-educational “safe spaces” (Benderson et al 2003: 3). In the states with no “safe spaces” laws, school groups were given equal rights to protect their students and the environment. The current legal basis for banning sex ed was because they did not want to have a public debate on such a controversial issue. In most of the states with some such laws, the opponents were told that the legislation was actually just a response to a national problem and not a legitimate religious, cultural, etc. issue that wanted to regulate sex ed. But in any event, by the time the current legal basis for restricting sex ed was changed to ban abstinence, the same laws still prohibited schools from teaching teaching about sex and pregnancy to students under 18 (Benderson et al 2003). The schools, now using condoms, were forced “to provide condoms for girls who were already pregnant” when the government prohibited the use of safe sex materials until they became public information (Benderson et al 2001). The reason parents were worried that the schools would “exploit” the young people with the same problems as the government and that they would take advantage of them with sex ed would be because the government was trying to coerce them and was doing some dangerous things that the children would not want their parents to be doing. This argument was echoed in other states, where the government would also try to get rid of the young people with problems or that were not addressed in sex education. The reason for allowing the government to continue to teach that sex education is a safe place for the children is because, as Benders noted, it is the “last gasp” of the baby. Bending the law against sex education was also discussed in an article by Wendy Stiles, who has been working on promoting sex education in other states (Shepherd et al 2001). It is hard to believe that the government could actually enforce the law without taking an actual position on whether abstinence is true (for example if you can teach that it is not.) But of course, they can easily find a way to do this even without having all the laws. Benders (2003: 1) also points out that this argument can simply not be factually applied to all other policy proposals and, therefore, there is no doubt that the anti-school-choice movement does not have to prove that sex education is safe. A lot of the ideas about school-based organizations and curricula can be extrapolated to other areas where the government was clearly pushing for it. While it is hard to prove that school-based groups didn’t have sex ed programs, we would argue that their arguments on “safe spaces” issues are justifications for banning or restricting sex ed. Even at the end of the day, we would agree that these were not “fundamental law amendments” that would put them on the same level of the state and federal government. But what if they were “laws?” So, for example, what if the government told every school in every state that you were not allowed to have any sex education at all after you entered high school, you didn’t really get some kind of “safe space.” Was that the intent? Not necessarily. While Benders stated that the goal of sex ed is “not to keep the people of our country away from sex” (
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Eliminated in 1978, only two states legalized sex education as an alternative for high education, a decision that had to wait until the 1980s. For instance, only California was allowed to have sex education (Gangney et al 2003). Both states were later moved to ban sex education for students under 18 through the 1996 Abortion Act legislation (Benderson et al 2003: 3). When the federal government began to regulate sex education, it stopped regulating it entirely, because the federal government didn’t want to restrict the government from enforcing sex-educational “safe spaces” (Benderson et al 2003: 3). In the states with no “safe spaces” laws, school groups were given equal rights to protect their students and the environment. The current legal basis for banning sex ed was because they did not want to have a public debate on such a controversial issue. In most of the states with some such laws, the opponents were told that the legislation was actually just a response to a national problem and not a legitimate religious, cultural, etc. issue that wanted to regulate sex ed. But in any event, by the time the current legal basis for restricting sex ed was changed to ban abstinence, the same laws still prohibited schools from teaching teaching about sex and pregnancy to students under 18 (Benderson et al 2003). The schools, now using condoms, were forced “to provide condoms for girls who were already pregnant” when the government prohibited the use of safe sex materials until they became public information (Benderson et al 2001). The reason parents were worried that the schools would “exploit” the young people with the same problems as the government and that they would take advantage of them with sex ed would be because the government was trying to coerce them and was doing some dangerous things that the children would not want their parents to be doing. This argument was echoed in other states, where the government would also try to get rid of the young people with problems or that were not addressed in sex education. The reason for allowing the government to continue to teach that sex education is a safe place for the children is because, as Benders noted, it is the “last gasp” of the baby. Bending the law against sex education was also discussed in an article by Wendy Stiles, who has been working on promoting sex education in other states (Shepherd et al 2001). It is hard to believe that the government could actually enforce the law without taking an actual position on whether abstinence is true (for example if you can teach that it is not.) But of course, they can easily find a way to do this even without having all the laws. Benders (2003: 1) also points out that this argument can simply not be factually applied to all other policy proposals and, therefore, there is no doubt that the anti-school-choice movement does not have to prove that sex education is safe. A lot of the ideas about school-based organizations and curricula can be extrapolated to other areas where the government was clearly pushing for it. While it is hard to prove that school-based groups didn’t have sex ed programs, we would argue that their arguments on “safe spaces” issues are justifications for banning or restricting sex ed. Even at the end of the day, we would agree that these were not “fundamental law amendments” that would put them on the same level of the state and federal government. But what if they were “laws?” So, for example, what if the government told every school in every state that you were not allowed to have any sex education at all after you entered high school, you didn’t really get some kind of “safe space.” Was that the intent? Not necessarily. While Benders stated that the goal of sex ed is “not to keep the people of our country away from sex” (
[block:1153]
Eliminated in 1978, only two states legalized sex education as an alternative for high education, a decision that had to wait until the 1980s. For instance, only California was allowed to have sex education (Gangney et al 2003). Both states were later moved to ban sex education for students under 18 through the 1996 Abortion Act legislation (Benderson et al 2003: 3). When the federal government began to regulate sex education, it stopped regulating it entirely, because the federal government didn’t want to restrict the government from enforcing sex-educational “safe spaces” (Benderson et al 2003: 3). In the states with no “safe spaces” laws, school groups were given equal rights to protect their students and the environment. The current legal basis for banning sex ed was because they did not want to have a public debate on such a controversial issue. In most of the states with some such laws, the opponents were told that the legislation was actually just a response to a national problem and not a legitimate religious, cultural, etc. issue that wanted to regulate sex ed. But in any event, by the time the current legal basis for restricting sex ed was changed to ban abstinence, the same laws still prohibited schools from teaching teaching about sex and pregnancy to students under 18 (Benderson et al 2003). The schools, now using condoms, were forced “to provide condoms for girls who were already pregnant” when the government prohibited the use of safe sex materials until they became public information (Benderson et al 2001). The reason parents were worried that the schools would “exploit” the young people with the same problems as the government and that they would take advantage of them with sex ed would be because the government was trying to coerce them and was doing some dangerous things that the children would not want their parents to be doing. This argument was echoed in other states, where the government would also try to get rid of the young people with problems or that were not addressed in sex education. The reason for allowing the government to continue to teach that sex education is a safe place for the children is because, as Benders noted, it is the “last gasp” of the baby. Bending the law against sex education was also discussed in an article by Wendy Stiles, who has been working on promoting sex education in other states (Shepherd et al 2001). It is hard to believe that the government could actually enforce the law without taking an actual position on whether abstinence is true (for example if you can teach that it is not.) But of course, they can easily find a way to do this even without having all the laws. Benders (2003: 1) also points out that this argument can simply not be factually applied to all other policy proposals and, therefore, there is no doubt that the anti-school-choice movement does not have to prove that sex education is safe. A lot of the ideas about school-based organizations and curricula can be extrapolated to other areas where the government was clearly pushing for it. While it is hard to prove that school-based groups didn’t have sex ed programs, we would argue that their arguments on “safe spaces” issues are justifications for banning or restricting sex ed. Even at the end of the day, we would agree that these were not “fundamental law amendments” that would put them on the same level of the state and federal government. But what if they were “laws?” So, for example, what if the government told every school in every state that you were not allowed to have any sex education at all after you entered high school, you didn’t really get some kind of “safe space.” Was that the intent? Not necessarily. While Benders stated that the goal of sex ed is “not to keep the people of our country away from sex” (
[block:1153]
Eliminated in 1978, only two states legalized sex education as an alternative for high education, a decision that had to wait until the 1980s. For instance, only California was allowed to have sex education (Gangney et al 2003). Both states were later moved to ban sex education for students under 18 through the 1996 Abortion Act legislation (Benderson et al 2003: 3). When the federal government began to regulate sex education, it stopped regulating it entirely, because the federal government didn’t want to restrict the government from enforcing sex-educational “safe spaces” (Benderson et al 2003: 3). In the states with no “safe spaces” laws, school groups were given equal rights to protect their students and the environment. The current legal basis for banning sex ed was because they did not want to have a public debate on such a controversial issue. In most of the states with some such laws, the opponents were told that the legislation was actually just a response to a national problem and not a legitimate religious, cultural, etc. issue that wanted to regulate sex ed. But in any event, by the time the current legal basis for restricting sex ed was changed to ban abstinence, the same laws still prohibited schools from teaching teaching about sex and pregnancy to students under 18 (Benderson et al 2003). The schools, now using condoms, were forced “to provide condoms for girls who were already pregnant” when the government prohibited the use of safe sex materials until they became public information (Benderson et al 2001). The reason parents were worried that the schools would “exploit” the young people with the same problems as the government and that they would take advantage of them with sex ed would be because the government was trying to coerce them and was doing some dangerous things that the children would not want their parents to be doing. This argument was echoed in other states, where the government would also try to get rid of the young people with problems or that were not addressed in sex education. The reason for allowing the government to continue to teach that sex education is a safe place for the children is because, as Benders noted, it is the “last gasp” of the baby. Bending the law against sex education was also discussed in an article by Wendy Stiles, who has been working on promoting sex education in other states (Shepherd et al 2001). It is hard to believe that the government could actually enforce the law without taking an actual position on whether abstinence is true (for example if you can teach that it is not.) But of course, they can easily find a way to do this even without having all the laws. Benders (2003: 1) also points out that this argument can simply not be factually applied to all other policy proposals and, therefore, there is no doubt that the anti-school-choice movement does not have to prove that sex education is safe. A lot of the ideas about school-based organizations and curricula can be extrapolated to other areas where the government was clearly pushing for it. While it is hard to prove that school-based groups didn’t have sex ed programs, we would argue that their arguments on “safe spaces” issues are justifications for banning or restricting sex ed. Even at the end of the day, we would agree that these were not “fundamental law amendments” that would put them on the same level of the state and federal government. But what if they were “laws?” So, for example, what if the government told every school in every state that you were not allowed to have any sex education at all after you entered high school, you didn’t really get some kind of “safe space.” Was that the intent? Not necessarily. While Benders stated that the goal of sex ed is “not to keep the people of our country away from sex” (
Another problem with teenagers is promiscuity. All teens want to experiment or have thought about it at one point or another and school-based clinics dont help. School based clinics should be opposed because by just being there, their presence encourages promiscuity by their implied invitations to “safe sex”. While no one but the clinically insane would disagree that there is a need for teen pregnancy prevention for unmarried teens, there is also no denying that all the hard work at “education”, school-based clinics, contraceptives and abortion accessibility have only increased the number of teens who now admit to experimenting with sex. The school-based clinics have their way of teaching “safe sex”, but in the growing number of venereal diseases including herpes and teen pregnancies, it is obvious that all the tax dollars going towards the clinics and the education is not effective (Turque).