The Sex Ed Debate

The Sex Ed Debate Within the last couple of years, the number of high school teenagers who have had sexual intercourse has raised dramatically. Most people would make the connection of the child’s behavior to their parents, but in reality it is much more than the parenting. Schools are also connected to the sexual activity when they teach health classes. But should schools be teaching abstinence or should they be teaching more? Well, if we want there to be less teen pregnancies and high school dropouts then we should be more aggressive when enforcing sexual education in schools. Currently, eighteen states and the District of Columbia require schools to teach sex education, while thirty-two do not. Some states are only teaching their students about AIDS/HIV but not about any of the other STDs or even how to prevent pregnancies. However, other schools teach students about everything from birth control to homosexuality. Schools need to provide more information about STDs and inform the students that there is so much more to having sex than they think. Today, there are two different types of sex education classes depending on what the state chooses. The two programs consist of Comprehensive Sexual Education and the Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Program. Comprehensive Sexual Education is a program that starts in kindergarten and continues through high school. It teaches information based on the ages or grade it is being taught to covering a broad range of information. The Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage course, however, emphasizes abstinence from all sexual behaviors. In the argument that the process of teaching sex education is actually leading to kids having sex, The World Health Organization found that there is no program actually encouraging it. So why is it that young kids are still doing it? It is because our schools are not teaching the right material. However, the opposing side would say that kids should learn about sex by asking questions, not by