Abstinence only education is still being funded in the United States.
People still tell their daughters that the longer their virginity is “intact” the more ethically correct and pure they are. I don't know which one is more problematic, but they are both incredibly damaging to young people.
In The Journal of Adolescent Health, Pamela Kohler discovered that, within her participants, when comparing abstinence-only high school teachings with comprehensive sex education, “comprehensive sex education programs were significantly associated with reduced risk of teen pregnancy, whether compared with no sex education or with abstinence-only sex education.”
Comprehensive sex education was associated with a 50% lower risk of teen pregnancy.
Abstinence only education hasn't stopped pregnancy or the spread of STD’s, it has actually done the complete opposite.
So why are we still funding this damaging type of “education” when it has done much more harm than good?
The answer to that question is as sad as it is simple: Abstinence-only education has never been about teenagers’ well-being. How could it be, when the statistics roll in every year, state the blatant lack of effectiveness and people still agree to continue it.
These people aren't just voting to continue this ineffective type of education, they are stating that their political or religious beliefs are more valuable than minimizing the likelihood of young people’s suffering.
A major problem with this realm of education that people forget to mention is that teenagers are still getting pregnant and are being infected with STD’s, even more so when they are belittled into abstinence and the mindset that sex is wrong.
Instead,they try to hide it, and schools have done them a deep disservice by not teaching them how to be safe. Sex talks are almost always fear inducing and clinical.
Teenagers aren’t going to be shamed into not having sex, but they will be shamed into hiding it from the adults that tell them how wrong it is.
High school students, most importantly, need to feel informed about sex. There is a precedence and the education system in private and public schools should not fail them.
Sex isn’t evil; people do it when they aren’t trying to reproduce all the time, and young adults shouldn’t be shamed into believing that. It is so important that they are educated, not just degraded and taught to keep their legs closed and wait until marriage.
