Sex Education in American Schools

Name: Course Code: Date: Sex Education in American Schools Sex education is an important subject area that ought to be instilled in children as early as possible. It should be intensified to adolescents who also need to be guided to make informed choices and decisions as their bodies change and psychologically become more attracted sexually to members of the opposite sex. It is a natural feeling to develop that attraction, but teenagers need guidance to ensure they do not make costly mistakes such as getting pregnant, contracting STIs, etc. The best approach is to teach adolescents to abstain from sex until they are older and or married, but it is elusive. According to CITATION CDC182 \l 1033 (CDC), 40% of high school students have had sexual intercourse, and 10% had four or more sexual partners. Additionally, according to CITATION CDC182 \l 1033 (CDC), ‘46% did not use a condom the last time they had sex, and 14% did not use any method to prevent pregnancy.’ Thus, inasmuch as promoting abstinence as the most effective strategy, teenagers still engage in sex despite knowing of the importance of abstinence and therefore, reality demands that teenagers must be informed on contraception methods to prevent the adverse effects of teenage sex. Adolescents ought to be taught contraception methods such as the use of condoms and birth control pills. Though this might seem contradictory to the goal of abstinence, it is important for adolescents to know how to have safe sex. It is probable that many teenagers will still engage in sex despite knowing the potential adverse effects that might come from it such as unwanted pregnancies and contracting STIs. Thus, the goal of comprehensive sex education is to ensure that any teenager will be informed to only engage in safe sex, have one partner and if possible, to abstain. However, abstinence should be taught as a family value and not as sex education. In Texas where the goal is to ensure teenagers abstain, they have nearly twice the number of teenage pregnancies than in California where sex education is structured to promote contraception and abstinence CITATION Mel12 \l 1033 (Stoeltje). Contraception methods have varying degrees of efficacy. Condoms are effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies and STIs, but if used inappropriately, they can burst. If teenagers are not taught how to use condoms appropriately, then they are likely to make mistakes and reduce the efficacy of condoms as a contraception method. Sex education ought to teach teenagers how to use condoms to improve their efficacy. Birth control pills are only meant to prevent pregnancy and thus do not prevent STIs. They also have varying degrees of success rate and a person can still get pregnant despite us...