Mean Girls: The Abstinence Of Sex Education In Schools

“Don’t have sex. Because you will get pregnant and die,” this is a well known quote from the movie Mean Girls. The quote brings laughter to many, but unfortunately, it describes the type of education that students are receiving in schools. Many schools teach an abstinence-only sex education curriculum, and some do not cover the topic at all; only 19 states require that sexual education be medically accurate, and cover the topics of sex and disease. An abundance of students have questions about sex and how their body works, and often have no choice but to look to their peers or other places for, often wrong, answers. In order for young people to make educated and intelligent decisions about their body, America needs better sex education. The magazine Cosmopolitan wanted to get an honest depiction of the questions kids have, and asked 9th graders to write down any questions they had pertaining to sexual education. The questions ranged from silly and inappropriate for the sake of humor, to serious and important issues. Girls had questions about their period, pregnancy, and how giving birth works; while boys had questions about why and how to use a condom, STDs and erections. The students were for the most part clueless when it came to their bodies. Assuming that kids will learn

Parents worry that if little Jimmy hears about sex during his class, by dinner that night he will have done it; however, the argument that children are better off with abstinence-only sex education has no supporting statistics. The opposite is true, districts with abstinence-only sex ed have higher teeny pregnancy rates and have not affected teens choice on having sex. Teens that were taught the abstinence-only method were polled, and of those who took a pledge of abstinence, less than half kept it, (NPR.) A high percentage ended up pregnant or otherwise ailed because of lack of