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The Importance Of Sexual Education In Public Schools

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Sexual Education has been encouraged to be a part of public school education since the late 1800’s. It is a program that is supposed to help young adolescents understand their body, promote abstinence, types of contraception, the risks of engaging in sexual activities, and how to prevent diseases or pregnancy. However, many parents fight this program because of their beliefs that teens should stay abstinent till marriage, and learning about sex will increase their urge to have sex. Depending on what the state requires to be taught and what a school district wants, a student will either receive one of the two styles of sexual education. The two styles are comprehensive and abstinence only. While they both stress the importance of abstinences, …show more content…
Due to parent’s having concerns that their child will become sexually active too early, they are putting their children at risk of not being prepared for dealing with how to properly handle what is expected to happen during their teenage and young adult years. Abstinence only sexual education is believed to be the best form of sexual education by many parents, but in reality it can cause a number of negative effects on teenager’s sexual knowledge and their abstinence. Abstinence only sexual education’s main focus is to inform teenagers that they should remain abstinent until they are married. Abstinence only sex education typically does not include any type of information on the reproductive system, contraception, preventing diseases and pregnancy, or how to have sex safely. Most abstinent only programs have also been proven to be “biased”, based on religious beliefs, include false information about the effectiveness of the use contraceptives, masturbation, and abortion. They also tend to “distort” information on the risks that come with having sex to prevent teens from having sex. An example of schools giving false information to students is in the movie Mean Girls. In this movie the coach teaching sex education starts of …show more content…
Unlike the effects of abstinence only sexual education, comprehensive has more of a positive effect on a teenager’s sexual outcome. Comprehensive sexual education has been proven by multiple studies to be the most “effective” form of sexual education. The focus of comprehensive sex education is to teach teenagers that abstinence is the best method for avoiding getting a STD and preventing pregnancy from happening. In some states, comprehensive sexual education teaches about the use of condoms and contraception to lower the chance of getting pregnant and of receiving an infection with STDs, or HIV. Many of the courses help teens develop interpersonal and communication skills and help them “explore their own values, goals, and options.” Comprehensive sexual education tells teenagers that engaging in sexual activities is natural and a part of life, while still explaining that abstinence is the best option in order to prevent pregnancy or disease. This form of sexual education also provides teenagers with the proper factual information they need to know about when it comes to those awkward topics like sexual orientation, masturbation, and abortion. Teenagers need to know everything there is to know about sex so they are not left in the dark and confused on anything, and with comprehensive sexual education teenagers are getting that. When teenagers are learning all that they need to in comprehensive

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