The Pros And Cons Of Abstinence-Only Schools

Introduction The society one is raised is the biggest influence on a person. In the United States where there tends to be a negative stigma surrounding an in depth sex education, many students go without the information needed to keep them well informed and safe when it comes to their sex lives. Along with the lack of information involving sex in sex education there also seems to be little to no information taught over the LGBTQ+ community.

Abstinence-Only Education

It is often perceived that by discouraging the act of sex or any form of self exploration of one's body then people will fail to act on what is natural. The reality of the situation is that by discouraging and keeping away information does not stop people from having sex or acting

Kelly J. Bell, a writer for the Inquiry Journal, states in an article done by her that, “Adolescents in the United States fair consistently worse on most sexual health measures than teens in other industrialized countries” Bell, K. J. (2009, November 01). Going into depth over why this way of teaching students is failing. The same article goes more in detail explaining how this system is impractical, “Why aren’t abstinence-only programs working for US teens? First, they are simply impractical. In the 21st century, age at puberty has decreased and age at marriage has increased, creating a greater gap between sexual maturity and marriage than ever before (Weaver et al., 2005). In Western countries, sex before marriage has become the norm, and it is statistically less normal for a woman to be a virgin at marriage than a non-virgin (Weaver et al., 2005). In the US specifically, teens begin having sex at an average of 16.3 years of age (Weaver et al., 2005). Abstinence-only sex education ignores these realities. Second, abstinence-only sex education programs have never been shown to be effective in altering teen sexuality activity” (Bell, K. J. (2009, November 01