Comprehensive Sex Ed vs. Abstinence-Only Ed
Why Comprehensive Sexuality Education Works: --Though abstinence is a vital component of a comprehensive sexuality education program, it should not be the only lesson taught. Students need age-and developmentally appropriate comprehensive sexuality education in order to protect their health and well-being. --Comprehensive, responsible sexuality education protects teens by promoting abstinence and resistance skills, while simultaneously preparing them to handle the consequences of their actions. Such programs provide teens with information about contraceptives and STD/HIV prevention so they can make responsible decisions if and when they become sexually active. --Evaluations of comprehensive sexuality education and other programs discussing both abstinence and contraception have demonstrated positive outcomes such as increased knowledge, delayed onset of sex, reduced frequency of sex, and increased contraceptive use. --Opponents of sexuality education often contend that teaching teens about how to protect themselves if they decide to be sexually active leads to sexual activity. However evaluations of sexuality education, AIDS education, school-based clinics, and condom availability programs do not escalate teen sexual activity. --The lessons taught in comprehensive sexuality education programs promote responsible decision-making, providing students with life skills that prove beneficial for a lifetime. Why Abstinence-Only Education Does Not Work: --Although abstinence plays an important role of comprehensive sexuality education evidence is lacking that abstinence-only education programs are effective in reducing teen sexual activity. --By failing to require comprehensive, complete information about pregnancy prevention, contraception, and sexually transmitted disease prevention, abstinence-only education fails to provide adolescents with the information that they need to protect themselves from unintended pregnancy and disease. --Promotion of abstinence-only curricula as the answer to the teen pregnancy problem is dangerous and counterproductive. These curricula often are fear-based and often present misleading or medically inaccurate material, deny critical and potentially life-saving information to teens, and may even lead them to believe that taking precautions are useless.
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