Leah Howard
Colleen Peterson
Karen Wiessner
Commenters: Keisha B, Colleen J, Ali M, Megan M, Kaitlyn O, JaNaye S, Jeri W, Martin B
What Approach to Sex Education Offers the Best Way to Reduce STIs, Unintended Pregnancy, and the Need for Abortion?
Reproductive health advocates have long maintained that the availability of birth control information and condoms in the schools is one of the best ways to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS infection, unintended pregnancy and the need for abortion. They argue that teens have always been sexually active, will continue to be so, and, in an age of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, that “just say no”, just isn’t enough and doesn’t work. Under the Bush Administration’s leadership, Congress appropriated more than $350 million for abstinence-only education programs. Supporters herald this support for abstinence-only programs because they blame comprehensive sex education for increases in teenage sex and pregnancy and credit abstinence-only programs with improvements in these areas. Recent studies raise questions about the efficacy of the abstinence-only and abstinence-plus approaches to sex education.