Social Cost of Abstinence-Only Sex Education Comprehensive Thesis

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Social Cost of Abstinence-Only Sex Education

Comprehensive Sex Education

The High Social Cost of Abstinence-Only Sex Education in the United States

The American Abstinence-Only Movement

In the United States there has been a social and legislative movement favoring abstinence-only sex education over the past 30 years (reviewed by Starkman and Rajani, 2002). Abstinence-only sex education programs do not include information on the purpose and use of contraceptives and by default promote chastity as the only method for avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Only 18 states and the District of Columbia require schools to include information on contraception in their sex education courses (Guttmacher Institute, 2011), despite a 1999 nationwide poll revealing that the majority (93%) of respondents supported instruction on such methods in school sex education programs (Starkman and Rajani, p. 616).

Part of the blame for this discrepancy can be attributed to the passage of the Adolescent Family Life Act in 1981 that provided federal funds for schools promoting abstinence-only instruction (Starkman and Rajani, p. 515). Challenges to this law have invoked the legal principle of separation of church and state, which implies that conservative religious agendas are behind the abstinence-only movement. This would explain the prevalence of fear among teachers regarding a community backlash should they attempt to teach a comprehensive sex education syllabus, which as a group overwhelmingly (90%) support including instruction on contraceptive use.

The Social Costs of the American Abstinence-Only Movement

The cost of abstinence-only instruction is high in terms of teen pregnancy and STD transmissions.

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American teens are no more sexually active than their Canadian and Swedish counterparts, yet the teen pregnancy rate in America is more than twice that of these countries (Guttmacher Institute, 2011). The prevalence of STD transmissions among American teens, relative to their Canadian and Western European counterparts, is also "extremely high" (Guttmacher Institute, 2011). Fortunately, there has been a reduction by almost half in number of unmarried pregnancies among females aged 15-19 between 1990 and 2005. In contrast to the intended purpose of the Adolescent and Family Life Act of 1981, only 14% of this decline has been attributed to abstinence. The vast majority of the decline (86%) was the result of increased contraceptive use.

Independent Support for Comprehensive Sex Education

Any studies investigating the efficacy of a comprehensive school sex education program in the United States would be compromised to some extent by the dominant influence of religion on family, teachers, and the community as a whole. In China, religion is not a significant factor in their public school system. The recent sexual awakening that has accompanied economic westernization in China has resulted in a….....

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