The Dangers of Abstinence Only Education

Written by Heather Bell

Our current abstinence only education is not working to prevent STDs, HIV, or pregnancy in teens. Every year 640,000 teens are infected with genital herpes and approximately 4.2 million teens between the ages of 15 and 24 have this incurable STD (Rogers, Augustine, & Alford, 2005). Each year 20,000 new cases of HIV occur in people under the age of 25 (Rogers, Augustine, & Alford, 2005). In 2000 there were 9 million new sexually transmitted infections in youth ages 15 to 24 (Morrison et. al., 2007). 2.8% of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 have Chlamydia (Morrison et. al., 2007). In 2000, 697,000 women under the age of 20 had an unintended pregnancy (Rogers, Augustine, & Alford, 2005). These numbers are atrocious and show that we are not properly educating our teens about sex. This is understandable considering 33% of schools give students abstinence only education (Keiser Family Foundation, 2002). Abstinence only education tells teenagers that abstinence from sex until marriage is the ONLY option for teenagers (Keiser Family Foundation, 2002). They do NOT give students any information about contraception or safe sex (Keiser Family Foundation, 2002).

Under federal law abstinence funds are only available to programs that teach: “A mutually faithful and monogamous married relationship is the standard for sexual activity, sexual activity outside marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects, and out-of-wedlock childbearing is likely to harm a child, the parents, and society” (Keiser Family Foundation, 2002). All three of these things are untrue. The majority of adults have sex before marriage and sexual activity happens in non-mutually faithful married relationships. Safe sexual activity outside of marriage does not have harmful psychological or physical effects. Many committed monogamous couples choose not to get married and have planned pregnancies that not harm the child, themselves, or society.

Not only is abstinence only education not working, it is also teaching students that having sex outside of marriage has consequences that it doesn’t have. While students don’t have the information and resources (e.g. condoms, birth control, STD testing, etc.) to have sex, they are still having it. In 2009, 46 % of high school students were sexually active and 34% of those did not use a condom (Sexual risk behaviors). 14% of high school students had 4 or more sexual partners in their lifetime (Sexual risk behaviors). 11% of teens (aged 15 to 19) had engaged in anal sex and 54% had oral sex (Sexual risk behaviors). This clearly shows that we need to change the way we education students about sex and relationships. 

References

Kaiser Family Foundation (2002). Sex education in the U.S.: Policy and Politics. Issue

           update March 2002.

Morrison, D.M. et. al. (2007). Replicating a teen HIV/STD preventive intervention in a

           multicultural city. AIDS Education and Prevention. 19(3), 258 – 271.

National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (2010). Sexual

          risk behaviors. Retrieved from 

        http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/sexualbehaviors/index.htm

Rogers, J, Augustine, J, & Alford, S. (2005) Integrating efforts to prevent HIV, other

         sexually transmitted infections, and pregnancy among teens. Advocates for youth.