Sex Ed: Is Teaching Abstinence Effective
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Sex Ed: Is Teaching Abstinence Effective
| Wed, 07-18-2007 - 2:45pm |
The House is currently debating whether to continue to fund state abstinence education programs in schools ($176 million is in question), in light of a government study this spring that found that abstinence education is ineffective. Read more about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/education/18abstain.html
What do you think? Do you favor abstinence education only in schools, or a sex ed program that includes abstinence as well other forms of birth control?





I definitely do not favor abstinence only sex ed. I think that it should be taught as part of the curriculum, incl. ways to say no w/o losing the BF or GF. I'm sure there are things that are similar to the DARE program, which told kids not to drink or use drugs. However, my DD and all her friends did the DARE program in 6th grade and most of them do drink now (age 18) even though I don't think they use drugs, so how effective was that in preventing drinking?
The problem w/ not giving info about birth control is that if kids decide to have sex (and given the statistics, a lot of them do) I think they should have reliable info about what kind of BC to use. One of my old roommates taught sex ed in a school for troubled high school kids who were kicked out of regular schools. You wouldn't believe what kind of incorrect info they had. I think that people who believe that if noone mentions sex in school, then kids won't have sex, are very naive. Sex is mentioned everywhere in our culture, from music, TV, videos. It's a constant bombardment of the popular culture that everyone is doing it, which I think is very hard to resist.
I remember back when I was a teen in the 70's. Back then, it would have been considered embarrassing for people to be pregnant when they weren't married. Now all the celebrities are having babies before they get married or w/o being married and they aren't embarrassed at all about it.
Is teaching abstinence effective?
I truely believe though that this is an issue that the parents should be better involved in and make sure that they properly educate themselves and their kids starting at a preteen level with age appropriate information. It's embarrassing at times but it would be more embarassing to be a grandparent at 35 or so, or have your kid have an STD on his or her face (my DR. brother says this is VERY common at the 17-18 level anymore)