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Ethan Trott
Comp Pd. 4
Mrs. Cramer
20 January 2016
"Let's talk about sex, baby..."
Not referring to the Salt n' Pepa lyrics, how much would you be able to talk about sex?
How much of what you have to say did you learn in sex-ed? Since 1981, there has been a
looming debate over sexual education being implemented into the school curriculum. Despite the
controversy, sexual education is beneficial to teens who have it available to them.
To begin, sexual education provides methods other than abstinence in protecting
teenagers in sexual situations. Many schools provide methods of contraception- mostly condoms.
Sexual education also provides information on where to find help in certain situations such as
contracting a sexually transmitted disease or becoming impregnated. This information is very
useful to many teens around the country. In 2010, the Obama Administration had passed the
Omnibus Appropriations Bill ("Sex Education"). This bill laid the basis for defunding
abstinence-only sexual education courses and promoting more contraceptive courses.
An argument which could go against this would be that some feel that sex-ed promotes
pre-marital sex. On the contrary, most of these courses are now centered upon abstinence. With
this, these programs are devoted to trying to influence students to wait to have intercourse until
after marriage, not promoting sex, but trying to prevent it. With abstinence being the center of
sex ed in this nation, it could also be labeled as unconstitutional because it is trying to influence

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religion onto the students in America- conflicting with the 1 st Amendment of the Constitution,
which enables the freedom and independence of religion. In my opinion, teaching a course in a
public school which should have no religious affiliation as it is funded by the government,
therefore sexual education courses should not be centered upon mainly Christian ideals.
Secondly, sexual education is effective in preventing teen pregnancy and the contraction
of sexually transmitted diseases methods by educating students on contraceptive methods.
Between 1991 and 2004, the teenage birth rate in the United States fell from sixty-two births per
thousand females under the age of eighteen to forty-one births per thousand (Klein). During this
time, there was a rapid increase in sexual education courses being implemented into the public
school curriculum nationwide. While few of these courses were centered on strictly
contraceptive methods, they were still successful despite them being mainly centered on
abstinence.
Many people believe that abstinence-only courses, which include no information on
contraceptive methods, are the most effective in preventing sexually transmitted diseases and
teenage pregnancies in America. Contrary to their belief, studies provide evidence against how
effective abstinence courses seem to be. Columbia University researchers conducted a study on
virginity pledge programs. The results showed that students who took virginity pledges were
more apt to partake in pre-marital sex than students who did not take a virginity pledge, despite
them waiting longer than most other students. Eighty-eight percent of students who took a
virginity pledge, according to this study, had engaged in sexual activity before marriage. All
students involved in the study were enrolled in an abstinence-only sexual education course
(Santelli). Though abstinence promotes moral values in a sexual nature, education involving
contraceptive methods prove more effective in preventing teen pregnancy.

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So what do students learn from sexual education? In this nation, the material they learn is
mostly pro-abstinence, or to not have sex until you're married. Though abstinence can help in
preventing unsafe sex and unplanned teenage pregnancies, sexual education that involves
methods of contraception prove far more effective than abstinence despite its unpopularity
among older generations. To conclude, sexual education is more beneficial to the adolescents of
America than no education at all, despite the debate between abstinence and contraception.
Sexual education is truly effective in preventing sexually transmitted diseases and teenage
pregnancies when implemented in America's school curriculum.

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Works Cited
Klein JD & Committee on Adolescence. Adolescent pregnancy: current trends and issues.
Pediatrics 2005; 116(1):281-286.

Santelli J et al. Abstinence and abstinence-only education: a review of U.S. policies and
programs. Journal of Adolescent Health 2006; 38(1):72-81.

"Sex Education." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.