Sex Education, School, Other Methods and Abortion: What Kind of Message Are We Sending??
(This article is about Sex Education and its relation to the mix message teenagers are getting, along with abortion and how it all relates together.)
Sex and Abstinence are two different things. How can you teach both of them without having a controversy?
Now days in an era where sex is common it is hard to teach abstinence without it being interfered with sex education and other things. Over 93% of all public high schools currently offer courses on sexuality or HIV. Still with all of this information out there for the public 11% of women aged 15-19 and 20% of those who have had sexual intercourse - become pregnant.
It is hard to tell teenagers that the best way to not have babies is to not have sex at all and then go out and teach them about having protection if they decide to have sex. The two messages don�t mix, they contradict each other. In one hand you have one message that is saying, "Don�t have sex", the other message is "Have safe sex, if you chose to have sex." These two messages complicate things. Still with free condoms being given out and free information teens are not using that protection and things fail to work properly. Latex condoms have a teenage failure rate of 20%. That means that 1 in 5 teen couples using latex condoms as birth control will be pregnant in one year. One third will have a pregnancy in two years. (Family Planning Perspectives. Vol 24. No 1. pp. 12-15).
Not only that but along with teaching abstinence, safe sex, there is also abortion. Sex education has always been a controversy issue, whether it should be taught in schools or not. However, the problem is not whether sex education should be taught in schools or not but rather how it should be taught. In sex education safe sex and abstinence is mention but abortion is not. Sex education is where they should teach teenagers about all the aspects of sex, from Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), to the morning after pill, and abortion. Sex education doesn�t seem to be doing its job. 13% of all U.S. births are to teens and with those births comes abortions. Nearly 4 in 10 teen pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion. Another option that is not discussed is adoption. Sex education only deals with protection and STDs, it doesn�t seem to be dealing with anything else after the fact of getting pregnant.
The United States has the highest teen pregnancies according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute. The reason for that is not the fact that sex education is failing, that is apart of it, but also the morals that teenagers are being taught. Some teens are taught that they should wait until marriage to have sex but other teens are not being taught anything and just have the television that is full of sex to be their teachers. Sex education is focused more on safe sex, how can it be effect to teach students not to have sex when their main point it have safe sex?? It seems illogical to install a program in the public school system that is teaching safe sex when society�s main point is don�t have sex at all until you are married.
Not only that but abortion is seen as not a big deal to many people. For example, schools won�t let you have an advil on campus for a headache but it is allowed for someone under the age of 18 to get an abortion. This type of thing seems like a double standard. A teenager can�t have an advil on campus because they will be labeled a drug addict but it is okay for them to have an abortion?? This type of thing seems wrong, that when girls are pregnant they are allowed to make this type of decision without the consent of the parent.
In conclusion, we as a society are sending a mix message to teenagers, and they are confused. With sex education we are telling them if they are going to have sex to have safe sex, which is basically telling them to have sex. On the other hand our message really is don�t have sex until marriage. But with these abortion laws that say that you don�t have to be 18 in order to have an abortion we are sending a message that says, "If you have sex, it�s okay, it can easily be fixed with an abortion." The one good thing that seems to be controversial but not as controversial is the morning after pill. The morning after pill works between the 72-hour period that you have become pregnant. Within those 72 hours, the woman can decide whether to take the morning after pill or not. IF she decides to take the morning after pill then her body decides not to conceive a baby and therefore they egg that has become fertilized is not longer fertilized and is taken out of her system. This type of treatment seems to be less controversial because the fertilized egg has not become a fetus or baby. Yet, in some states the woman need to get this pill prescribed by a doctor. It seems that it is easier for a girl to get an abortion then to get an advil at school for a headache. Society is sending teenagers many mix messages. This does not help them because the are at a difficult time of age and are more confused then ever.
(If statistics are not sited it is because they come from the Alan Guttmacher Institute)