‘Comprehensive Sex Education’ Favored Against ‘Abstinence-Only’ Programs

A national survey was conducted to gauge the nature of school based sex education that was most effective, and it was found that mere abstinence based approaches did not meet with the desired results. Infact Americans feel that youngsters in schools need to know much more than just avoiding sex , which includes methods to prevent pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

"Abstinence-only programs, while a priority of the federal government, are supported by neither a majority of the public nor the scientific community," they said.

The Abstinence-only sex education is not as effective as Abstinence-plus, or comprehensive, programs that seek to educate on contraception and protection against sexually transmitted disease as well as stress the importance of abstinence. Such programs are far more successful and may even inspire a postponement of the first sexual experience, and may contribute towards bringing down the frequency of sex and unprotected sex, and even reduce the number of sexual partners.

The researchers concluded, "Our results indicate that U.S. adults, regardless of political ideology, favor a more balanced approach to sex education compared with the abstinence only programs funded by the federal government. With such high support for comprehensive sex education among the public from liberals, conservatives, and moderates alike, political leaders could capitalize on this rare occasion to enact public policy that is supported by both sound scientific evidence as well as public opinion."

Source-Medindia
SAV

Medindia on Sex education for teens
There is a growing need to educate our teenaged children about sexual intercourse through proper sex education. This is because of two main reasons: one, to prevent the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS and others; and two, to prevent teenage pregnancies. Apart from teenage pregnancies being a health hazard for the teens, often teenagers are unprepared to handle pregnancy and childbirth. Hence it’s important to teach teenagers the serious consequences of irresponsible sexual activities.

Why Sex Education Is Required For Teenagers?

There is a growing need to educate our teenaged children about sexual intercourse through proper sex education. This is because of two main reasons: one, to prevent the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS and others; and two, to prevent teenage pregnancies.

Apart from teenage pregnancies being a health hazard for the teens, often teenagers are unprepared to handle pregnancy and childbirth. Hence it’s important to teach teenagers the serious consequences of irresponsible sexual activities. Also facts like a pregnant teenager may cause serious damage to her own health and that of her fetus in trying to hide the pregnancy, ignorance amongst teens about proper prenatal care that is required, ignorance about heath dangers in pregnancy like smoking, alcohol consumption and drug abuse, all together may put a great deal of stress to the fetus that will be born as well as its teenaged mother.

A teen pregnancy may also lead to the teenaged girl to postpone her education, and she may not be able to have enough skills and training to support herself and the child afterwards. If the teen father takes the responsibility of the mother and the child, then by all means he will have to give up being educated further for the sake if a job. Also for the teenage parents, they lack adequate parenting skills that come with years of education and experience of life, and more often children born to such parents become the victims of child abuse.

When we look at all these facts together with the severe social stigma been attached to unwed teen pregnancies in India and else where, it is not difficult to understand why sex education programs for teenagers are so much required.

In the year 2002 the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had asked the schools to incorporate the subject of sex education in schools across the country, but in reality there are more schools that are hesitant about educating their students about sex than the schools, which had gone ahead with the inclusion of the topic. Sex education as a subject is yet to be accepted as a normal part of the school curriculum, and the problem is not only in India alone.

The main debate for the subject had centers around the question about the benefits of teaching children about contraception. And yet research had shown that comprehensive sex education programs, which teach the children about the benefits of both abstinence and contraception, had been quite effective in making the young adults take better decisions about sex that had affected their health the least.

What is Sex Education?

Research had showed that there’s strong proof that comprehensive sex education benefits the young adults substantially. The sex education course not only promotes the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) they also gives importance to the role played by abstinence and contraception, as well as sending clear information regarding the use of condoms and other contraception methods available to them.

These programs also may be designed to provide activities to deal with peer pressures, and how to deal with these topics by communicating well, negotiating or refusing.

The US government, since 1996, had started a series of sexual health programs that teach abstinence only. The basic principles of these programs being that the individuals are expected to maintain a single partner sexual relationship within the framework of marriage as a standard form of behavior. The counselors for these programs stress that sexual relationship with more than one partner can cause several adverse psychological and physical effects. These programs had quite a few times censored the information related to contraception to exaggerate the success/failure rates.

Is Sex Education Effective?

Agencies like the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, National Institutes of Health etc have all published research reports that support the effectiveness of the sex education programs conducted in the US and other parts of the world. However, there is no definite proof available on the effectiveness of programs that support abstinence-only-till-marriage principle.

A current research that had evaluated 25 different studies conducted on the effectiveness of comprehensive sex education and HIV education had reported that there is no evidence that shows that these programs increase the initiation to sexual intercourse. On the contrary, these programs had delayed the initiation of the participants to sexual intercourse, and in at least three of the programs had showed a decrease in the frequency of sexual intercourse for the participants.

The research also showed that in 12 of the comprehensive sex education programs under review showed increased use of condoms amongst the sexually active participants of the programs. 

Parents And Sex Education

Parents of adolescent boys and girls can play an important role in imparting sex education to them, in the cases where the subject being neglected in schools. However, most often parents feel shy or embarrassed to discuss sex with their children. There is evidence to show that whenever the parents had been able to break the mindset and talked openly with their children to share their knowledge about sex education, children not only listened to them, but also followed their advice and had resorted to them to sort out their feelings on the subject.

Here are a few guidelines for the parents to follow in order to be able to feel more comfortable with their children and give them sex education:

 A good age to start having discussions on the topic is when they are most drawn to sexual behaviors, in their adolescence.

 It is not only important to teach them what can happen, but it is as important to teach them birth control as well.

 Don’t be afraid to talk to your children. Talking about sex and other things like drugs etc can help your children take their own decisions.

 Incase you feel afraid or embarrassed to talk to your children, take the help of a medical practitioner to explain these things to your children.

 Children look up to their parents for the right knowledge. Hence it will help them tremendously if the parents get their facts right before talking to their children.

 Always remember, your children’s life decisions could depend on the knowledge you will be sharing with them. Keeping this in mind will help you to overcome any fear or embarrassment you may feel about sex education.

---

Copyright Issues?