Depending on which state you live in, sex education is controversial subject matter in both middle and high schools. This stems from religious, political, and advocate groups. Religious and political groups want to focus on teaching abstinence only whereas certain advocate groups want to teach complete comprehensive sex education so students can understand how to prevent unwanted health issues and pregnancies.
Wasteful Government Spending
Government has spent millions of dollars over the past two decades having speakers to promote abstinence only sex education. Why? This ideology is one of the biggest wastes of government spending. Students often make pledges to not have sex until married, yet they are uneducated about sexual preventive awareness through pills and contraceptives, which, in turn, can lead to unprotected sex and transmittal diseases.
Religious Power
Religious groups often perceive sex as dirty or a sin trying to scare the younger generation into not having sex. Is this for the purpose to gain power? From the beginning of time, teenagers have had sex. Abstinence only has not worked and will never work. When one’s body discovers puberty, the body is telling you it is ready for sex, but, of course, that doesn’t mean have sex as soon as it happens. You cannot pray in schools, but religion is okay when discussing sex.
Freedom of Choice
America has a very mixed cultural society and too many different beliefs for one ideology to reign over another one. No one person or group should tell anyone whether to have sex or not (unless illegal) based on religious values, lies, or government control. Once a student hears about religious and government sex scandals, which are daily occurrences, his trust obviously disappears. Students need to be educated on the consequences of sex and then they can decide their own fate.
The Dutch Truth
A religious group was at a school in Arcadia, Florida asking students to make a pledge for abstinence. The group arranged hospital beds saying that if you have sex now at a young age, you may get Herpes or Aids, or some STD. One of the speakers mentioned Amsterdam saying, “That place is crazy.” Seems a little ironic because he decided that because Amsterdam has an open mind about sex and many schools in Amsterdam distribute condoms in the lower grade levels. Plus, Amsterdam is well known for its red light district, which is full of legal prostitution. This speaker decided to assume instead of do any fact checking. Amsterdam has one of the lowest percentages of pregnancies and STD’s in the world. The Dutch educate students not when they discover puberty, but much younger.
Curriculum Development
When people debate about sex education in America, they usually think of sex in broad terms of only intercourse or oral sex. The Dutch teach children (approximately kindergarten) the difference between a boy and a girl, cuddling, why mothers get pregnant and the positive rewards of a family. Then, just before puberty, they teach the effects of possible dangers and educate them on safe sex. Sex is a natural physiological part of life and schools in America need to take the initiative to put sex education on the curriculum and discuss safety and the facts, not forceful brainwashing.
