“Don’t have sex, because you WILL get pregnant…and die.”
As hilarious as this ridiculous line from beloved teen comedy ‘Mean Girls’ is, the sad reality is it’s not too far what is actually being taught in some Sex Ed classrooms. Only 22 states in the entire US actually require students to take a Sexual Education course, and out of those states, the amount of school districts providing useful information on safe sex, STIs, and contraception is miniscule.
Who decided shoving abstinence down the throats of horny teenagers was a good idea? Congress of course! In 1981, with no hearing or floor votes, Congress passed the Adolescent Family Life Act, or the AFLA. The objective of the AFLA was to “promote chastity and self discipline.” A short 15 years later, in 1996, a “Title V Abstinence ONLY” program was put into effect. This program is solely dedicated to spending millions of federal funds on teaching students that the only way to have safe sex is “abstinence until marriage.”
The Rules of the “Title V Act” are simple.
As long as states teach the follow two ideals, they will receive a nice wad of cash.
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Sex outside of marriage will damage your physical and mental health.
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If you don’t remain abstinent you will get pregnant and contract a Sexually Transmitted Disease.
The public school system is being bribed into retaining valuable information from its students.
Let’s say you are deathly afraid of your child drowning. Would you give them swimming lessons and access to life jackets, or would you forbid them from ever going into the water? Your tax dollars are being wasted on misinforming kids about sex, leaving them with no means to protect themselves.
But hey, at least these lessons are scaring teens away from premarital intercourse right? Wrong.
Teenagers are still having sex, but because they lack the knowledge and resources on how to properly protect themselves, they are putting themselves at great risk of potential unwanted pregnancy or contracting a Sexually Transmitted Infection. States that have abstinence-only programs, have the highest pregnancy rates in the entire country.
STIs are spreading like wildfire in these states because not only do the students lack the knowledge of how to prevent them, they don’t even know some exist in the first place.
Teenagers are going to learn about sex no matter what. If they aren’t provided the resources to learn in the classroom, they will seek information elsewhere. Twitter, tumblr, classmates, porn, significant others, all run the risk of providing them with false information. They are left with inaccurate ideas or assumptions about how sex should be. This can lead to confusion later in life, when experiencing the many firsts of a healthy sex life.
Being ill informed can lead to physical, mental and emotional abuse in relationships. If you don’t have a firm grasp on the idea of consent, you won’t know how to identify sexual assault or abuse. By censoring content to “protect” students, the government is actually leaving them more vulnerable to the dangers of unsafe sex. The bottom line is if America doesn’t want adolescents to get pregnant or contract STIs, then why are we not provided with the means to protect ourselves from said dangers?
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