Mr. Kegley
HST
28 September 2015
Ethical Issues: Comprehensive Sex Education The subject of sex education quickly rose into question when the HIV/STD epidemic began in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Since then, sex education and condom use have been put into debate numerous times with divided sides. Abstinence-until-marriage programs received one of their biggest victories when, under President Bill Clinton, the federal government began to fund over $50 million dollars for these programs. Ever since this funding began, abstinence-until-marriage programs have been pushed in schools all over America (Malone, Patrick, and Monica Rodriguez, 2008). However, since this push, numerous studies and surveys have been released with one …show more content…
With these studies, data has shown that abstinence programs do not create a flux in change. If these programs do not help to create change, what is our solution? Instead of pushing abstinence, comprehensive sex education should be implemented into our education system because it has been scientifically proven to help create awareness in teens. By limiting the information we give to today’s youth, we prevent them from getting the full information that they need to make informed decisions regarding their anatomy and sex life. Sex education was not implemented into schools until the HIV/STD epidemic in the 1990’s. Until then, no one was informed about how to prevent getting an STD. Although there was a curriculum that taught how condoms can help prevent STDs, there was another …show more content…
According to Janice Hopkins Tanne (2005), teenage pregnancies have declined since the 1950’s and 60’s due to the legalization of abortion and the introduction of birth control and contraception. Despite this, America’s teenage pregnancy rate (ages 15-19) remains high when compared to other developed countries. A report made to the Department of Health and Human Services has shown that abstinence programs has made teens acknowledge abstinence, but did not assist in decreasing sexual activity, pregnancies, or cases of STD (Tanne, Janice Hopkins). Kemper, Martha (2012) reports of a survey conducted by the CDC, the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), and asked 4,691 participants if they had received education before the age of 18 on “how to say no to sex” and “on the methods of birth control”. From this survey, researchers determined that those that received some type of sex education were more likely to delay their first experience with sex, compared to their peers that did not receive and type of education at all. It was also revealed that those that received abstinence-only education were more likely to delay their first sexual experience, but did not correlate with using protection; condom use was significantly less likely to be used in females that only received abstinence-only