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Pros And Cons Of Abstinence-Only Education

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Pros And Cons Of Abstinence-Only Education
Madi Swier
Formal Writing Assignment Draft
English 102 and Monday and Wednesday 2-3:15
Professor Rigdon
18 September 2015
Abstinence Only is Not the Only Way The differences between abstinence- only sex education and comprehensive sex education need to be highlighted in order to show the bias that abstinence- only sex-education has, even in the classrooms. Advocates for Youth highlight the differences as follows, “Comprehensive sex education teaches that sexuality is a natural normal, healthy part of life and teaches that abstinence from sexual intercourse is the most effective method of preventing unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.” Whereas abstinence only teaches, “That sexual expression outside of marriage …show more content…
Abstinence-only education, which is the teaching of restraining from sexual activity. The second form is safe sex education, which is teaching that if you are going to have sex how to be safe and make the right choices surrounding that choice. Abstinence-only education should not be the only form of sexual education taught; students may not be taught the consequences of deciding to have sex, they need to learn about forms of contraception and the effectiveness of each of the forms, and they need to know as much as factual information as can be given to them to ensure they do not live afraid that what they were told might be completely …show more content…
For example, if the students were told that condoms did not protect against any STDs then they would always be afraid of sex, when in actuality condoms do protect against some STDs. This not to say that some of these students will not look up information for themselves because now they are curious, but some might be lazy and end up going through their life ignorant. What about the topics that abstinence-only sex education neglects to speak about since it usually has a religious agenda attached to the program? According to Advocates for Youth, abstinence only sex education programs will often leave out topics that they think are controversial due to the conflict with a religion that the class is usually associated with. So if there were a student in that class struggling with being pregnant or their sexual orientation, the abstinence-only class would not teach them how to cope with what they are going through. Granted these issues are pretty mainstream now so they would be able to find the answers with a few clicks of some buttons, but this program intentionally leaves these topics out because it does not agree with
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