Dr. O’Hara
Rebuttal Final Draft
In a perfect society, children could be taught not to steal, and they would be never become thieves. Children could be taught not to hate, and they would never grow up to commit acts of violence. Children could be taught the value of chastity, and they would never engage in premarital sex. However, the society we live in is far from perfect; it is real. We teach morals and do our best to lead children on the right path, but, as human nature has proven, inevitably some will stray.
While sexual activity among teens cannot always be prevented, the life-altering and sometimes deadly consequences that may come of it can be prevented. Having the means and resources to do so appropriately, it should not only the right of the public education system to take action, but their responsibility. Sex education in schools that includes information about sexually transmitted diseases, condom use, and contraception has proven to be the most effective way to curb teen pregnancy and STD contraction. However, the abstinence-only programs that are sweeping schools across the country are based on the principle that sexual education should be left out of schools entirely, a belief that could be detrimental to students.
Abstinence-only education officially came to be in 1981, when Congress passed the Adolescent Family Life Act, commonly known as the “chastity law” (Planned Parenthood). This act provided funding for sex education programs that promised to
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“promote self-discipline and other prudent approaches to adolescent sex”. Despite statistics against the programs and an understanding of human nature, abstinence-only sex education curriculums are proliferating rapidly in schools across the United States. The current administration continues to fund the programs despite evidence that they are far less effective then the formerly taught abstinence-based curriculums, that preach abstinence but promote condom use “in case” of premarital sex. Students graduate from abstinence-only programs with a pledge to remain abstinent until marriage, but are ignorant about their sexuality. Not only do most abstinence-only programs omit all information concerning sexuality and its consequences, some have gone to extremes by misinforming students in an attempt to promote abstinence before marriage, grossly exaggerating failure rates of birth control and making false claims about the effectiveness of condoms in preventing STDs.
In 1996, as teen pregnancy arose as an issue for the newly instated welfare legislation, Congress attached a provision that created a federal program to exclusively fund programs teaching abstinence-only (Planned Parenthood). Since then, nearly $1 billion has been spent on abstinence-only education in both public and parochial schools. None has been given to abstinence-based education programs (Planned Parenthood).
Teenage sexual activity too often results in teen pregnancy and the spread of STDs, including the deadly HIV virus, and thus the public health and welfare problems caused by premarital sex among teens is a nationwide issue that must be addressed by the government and remedied in schools, both public and private. Ideally, prevention of teenage sexual activity through abstinence-only education would tackle the problem at its
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source, eliminating teen pregnancies and halting the nationwide STD epidemic. Our society is all but ideal, however, and complete prevention of teenage sexual activity is all but impossible.
Any human biology textbook will tell you, despite religious beliefs, that libido develops at puberty, not marriage. Nature designed the human body to begin sexual activity at a much earlier age than society deems appropriate for marriage. While the morals taught in abstinence-only programs preach self-control in order to abstain from sex until marriage, the battle with nature is a hard one to win. Statistics show that over 50% of teenagers succumb to their libido and engage in premarital sex (Planned Parenthood).
To quell the libidos of adolescents and reinforce the practice of self-control, abstinence-only programs not only teach students to abstain from sex, but eliminate all references to sexuality in all school materials. Textbooks that exclusively promote abstinence and contain no information regarding reproductive systems, sexual health, or sexuality are replacing those containing factual information on the topics in schools across the country. A school in North Carolina went as far as to have three chapters containing information about sexual health literally sliced out of their text books because it did not coincide with abstinence-only education (Planned Parenthood). Teachers are under constant supervision to ensure that their lectures are void of any sexual reference, and student-run publications are heavily censored. Abstinence-only education programs function based on the “out of sight, out of mind” concept, relying on total elimination of
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sexual material from curriculum to prevent sexual thoughts in the minds of the students and aid in self-control.
In reality, a teen’s education is a concerted effort, a tapestry of schooling, media, and friends and family. While schools can provide a chaste haven for teens, they live in a
society laden with sexuality. Television, music, movies and even books are painted with human sexuality and readily available to teens everywhere. Sex is often the topic of discussion among curious peers, and many households are open about sexuality. Regardless of the tireless efforts of abstinence-only programs to erase sexuality from the lives of teenagers, they are powerless outside of the schools.
When information about sexuality is not provided by schools with abstinence-only programs, it is only natural for teens to seek out answers, often through experience, to quell their hormonal curiosities. It is the quality of these answers that abstinence-only programs must consider. If they will not educating teens on their sexuality, who will? When adolescents are not provided with factual information, they too often fall victim to misconceptions about birth control, safe sex, and sexual morality in general that can have devastating, even deadly consequences.
Not only do abstinence-only program students still engage in premarital sexual activity, as evidence has shown, they do so without an understanding of the consequences or methods of STD prevention and birth control. Though the majority of abstinence-only program students pledge virginity upon completion of the program, an overwhelming 88% percent of these students did indeed engage in premarital sex, a statistic that clearly invalidates claims of abstinence-only success (Planned Parenthood). In fact, there is little
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evidence that students of abstinence-only programs abstain from sex any longer than students of abstinence-based programs. There is, however, startling evidence that they are less likely to use contraception and protection from STDs, while the majority of abstinence-based students do (Planned Parenthood).
Undoubtedly, teen pregnancies and the STD epidemic are nationwide issues that require effective sexual education programs in order to resolve them. Yet, the
government continues to fund abstinence-only programs that have fallen short of proving their effectiveness. Statistics have shown that teens engage in premarital sex regardless of their sexual education background, and if it is within the means of our government and educations systems to educate them on ways to do so safely then it is without question their responsibility to do so.
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Works Cited
Planned Parenthood.org. “Abstinence-Only ‘Sex’ Education”. 1 March 2005.
Rector, Robert E. “The Effectiveness of Abstinence Education Programs in Reducing Sexual Activity Among Youth.” 1 March 2005. <