Essay About Sex Education

Should schools teach more about sex education? Would it help boys and girls be safer? Would there be less Sexually Transmitted Diseases or more? “The truth is if teens learned more about sex then there would be less teen pregnancies and less STDs.” ("5 Reasons Schools Should Adopt LGBTQ-inclusive Sex Ed.") I think teen pregnancies are unfortunate and teens should really think more about the consequence and how it can affect your life. “Most students, however, do not receive any instruction until 9th or 10th grade, by which time many have already became sexually active.” ("Implementing Sex Education.") “Ages 15 to 24 makeup 25 percent of the sexually active population, but acquire half of all new Sexually Transmitted Infections which is about 9.8 million new cases a year.” (“FACTS ABOUT SEX EDUCATION.")
I believe sex education should be taught more
because of these reasons. Although I believe others think sex education shouldn’t be taught because it may influence teens to have sex earlier rather than waiting. There’s also the fact that it costs more for books and teachers to teach sex education, plus there’s reports of teachers finding it weird to talk about diseases, and dangers of sex to their students. ("Sex Education: Politicians, Parents, Teachers and Teens.") Another reason is some parents want to teach their own kid about these things and not the school do it for them.
“Some facts about sex is in 2011 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey indicates that more than 47 percent of all high school students say they have had sex, and 15 percent of high school students have had sex with four or more partners during their lifetime.” “About 3.2 million adolescent females are infected with at least one of the most common Sexually Transmitted Infections.” ("Sex Education.") Many people feel anxious or scared in tackling the topics of sex, and sexual health.
They feel overwhelmed about where to start or confused about what to teach and when to teach it. The US is the oldest and most trusted provider of sexual health care, and with a national network of sexuality educators, medically accurate sex education in your school or program. “By the late 1980s, many states required schools to provide instructions about AIDS and other STDs.”(”Sex Education.") “In addition, since 1988, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have provided financial assistance to state and local education programs, national organizations and other groups to improve HIV education in
schools.”

“As of December 1997, 19 states and the District of Columbia had laws or policies that required schools to provide sexuality education, and 34 states and the Districts to learn about HIV, AIDS and other STDs.” This proves that the government wants schools all over the United States to start teaching more sex education and learn about diseases. ("5 Reasons Schools Should Adopt LGBTQ-inclusive Sex Ed.") “The government hopes by sex education that the teen pregnancies would drop. Today around 1 and 4 girls will become pregnant before the age of 20 and when a teenage girl gets pregnant they are highly likely to drop out of high school or college to take care of the child.” Especially after having a kid the cost of taking care of it is expensive which puts a lot of stress on the girl, her parents and her friends. “A survey found at least 3 out of 4 parents say that sex education should discuss condoms, birth control, abortions and other topics.”
Most parents think that these topics should be discussed in a fair and balanced presentation with facts and views from different people in the community. ("Sex Education: Politicians, Parents, Teachers and Teens.") “The percent of males not receiving any sex education before they have their first intercourse is about 30% and for black teens it’s as high as 45%.” “According to a survey around 60% of teens use condoms and 23% use birth control during the last encounter.” Schools seem to require instructions about contracting HIV or other STDs more recently because of how easy it is today for things to spread. “According to dozens of sexuality education facts which interviewed for this report during the 1990s.” “Recent data in 2000 shows medical cost for treating young people with a STD was 6.5 billion dollars annually.” “A source on teen pregnancy is MTV's "16 and Pregnant" and "Teen Mom" , many people have been called these shows the best public service campaigns to prevent teen pregnancy.” There is some criticism on how they produced the show for "glamorizing" teen pregnancy. It’s said “whether you like these shows or not, they have sparked a long-overdue national discussion on this issue”.
People think the young moms on the show often graced the covers of magazines such as Us Weekly only further proved that point: teenagers watching the show, would be jealous of the teens way of life how they live as celebrities. ("How MTV's ’16 and Pregnant’ Led to Declining Teen Birth Rates.") Recently a lot of shows have popped up on tv relating to teen pregnancy like 16 and pregnant, The pregnancy pact, Teen mom, Too young to be a dad and many more. I think that a lot of these shows are trying to point out that having a kid when your a teen isn’t a good idea and will hopefully make you think twice. I also know that teens might get the wrong idea about these shows and will try so badly to get on one of them so they might actually want to get themselves pregnant for publicity.
The cost of taking good care of a child when your teen can be very overwhelming with cost of daycare, diapers, education, sports, food and electronics. When a teen mom has a kid they usually have to pay daycare so someone can watch their kid while they go work, even if they have a boyfriend/husband working that’s still not enough depending on the job. ("The Costs of Raising a Child at Every Age."). There’s also the fact that you want to go out with friends and have fun but having a kid can change all of that. Your friends could leave you because they might not want to hang around with you if you have a child. They might feel that they can’t relate to you. They'll probably want to go out on the weekend and do what they want to do and not having that feel of responsibility. They could possibly not know how to act around you. My personal opinion is I completely understand if my friends left me because I have a kid, I get that they want to do their own thing and live their life and not be chained down by responsibilities.
I hate to think that a teen would want to have a kid so early in their life and not want to take the time to enjoy everything around them. I interviewed two of my friends about this topic and the questions were “Would you put your son or daughter in a sex education class? and why?” they responded with “I would so he or she can learn how to not catch anything and more importantly not get pregnant or get someone pregnant” another question was “What if you have a daughter and she got pregnant?” their answer was “Hopefully she wouldn’t get pregnant in the first place but if she did I would let her make her own choice, either keeping and raising the child or get an abortion” and the lasted question I asked was “How would you feel if your son or daughter caught a major/life threatening STD?” and the answer was “I would feel disappointed in them for not using the right protection”. So overall I would hope schools need to add more sex education to educate the young and not make the mistakes that a lot of people have made.