Teenage pregnancy and sex ed

Posted by Suzanne Dolwick Grieb on September 14, 2008 
Filed Under In the news

With the news that the 17-year old daughter of Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, is five months pregnant, there has been a surge of media attention on teen pregnancy and sex education in the US. But the discussion has been going on for some time. Here’s what NPR had to say in 2004 about a study that had just been published:

The debate over whether to have sex education in American schools is over. A new poll by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government finds that only 7 percent of Americans say sex education should not be taught in schools… Nearly three-quarters of the principals (74 percent) say there have been no recent discussions or debate in PTA, school board or other public meetings about what to teach in sex ed. Likewise, few principals report being contacted by elected officials, religious leaders or other people in their communities about sex education.

Although there may broad agreement that sex ed should be taught, there remains plenty of debate over how to teach it.  Palin, for instance, is a proponent of abstinence-only education. She does not support teaching children about safe sexual practices, including the use of condoms.  Others believe that children should be provided all the tools necessary to make the most informed decision possible.

The message provided to teenagers is important. According to some estimates, each year approximately 750,000 teens get pregnant.  That’s one-third of all teen girls. Teen pregnancy obviously has a major impact on the lives of people directly affected, but it also has broader implications for society. For example, by one estimate, more than two-thirds of teen parents do no complete high school, costing the US economy some $7 billion annually.

Comments

6 Responses to “Teenage pregnancy and sex ed”

  1. Sarah on September 14th, 2008 11:43 pm

    that is so ridiculous that she is abstinence only. you would think of all people she would want safe sex to be taught, unless of course she believes her 17 year old daughter was trying to get pregnant, which of course raises a whole other line of questions.

    in middle school we were taught sex ed and about what kind of STIs are out there and how exactly you get them and/or dont get them (i.e. not from holding hands etc). and that condoms prevent them and things like the pill doesnt. it was really helpful and im glad that we learned about it. interestingly, during that time i had one friend, in the 7th grade, and she didnt even know how you have sex. when she found out in school she was sooo shocked! so obviously we cant rely on parents to teach their children while there are some parents out there who wont even tell their 13 year old children the mechanics of sex. it needs to be taught in school. and clearly with pregnancy rates like those stated above and most schools preaching abstinence, something is not working and its time to try a new approach.

  2. Brandon on September 15th, 2008 11:52 pm

    My high school taught a course on sex ed that revolved solely around abstinence. To be completely honest, not a single person that I know of took the class seriously just because of that one aspect. While there are still people out there who do no believe in premarital sex, it has been my experience that that line of thinking is no longer the norm. Many kids today see sex as an important factor in a relationship, and one that should be established well before the commitment of marriage is decided. Lets be honest, how can you know that a relationship will function when you havent fully tested the waters?
    Further, as the course at my high school was purely about abstinence, I do not believe that I was taught anything useful about safe sex. I had a very serious girlfriend with whom I was planning to marry. When the relationship really started evolving, and we had had sex multiple times, my girlfriend and I decided to have un protected sex. My girlfriend told me that we were ok to do this as long as she was not ovulating. Of course I had never heard anything to contradict that statement, we had un protected sex, and she got pregnant. The pregnancy ended up being ectopic, and had to be surgically removed or my girlfriend would have died. Afterwards the relationship was a mess, and we could no longer stand to be together because there was an extreme feeling of guilt above the both of us.
    Kids today need real sex ed. No one is going to take an all abstinence approach seriously, and there is a lot of information that the everyday teen knows nothing about and should.

  3. Brittany on September 16th, 2008 12:56 am

    I agree with Sarah. Maybe if Palin had spent more time making sure her daughter knew about sex and how to protect herself and less time promoting abstinence only then she wouldn’t be in this predictament. I feel like abstinence only education breeds only one thing, ignorance. I’m not against teaching that abstinence is the ony way to protect oneself positively from pregnancy and STIs, but it shouldn’t be the only thing taught. Also, tell any teenage kid not to do something and they most likely will do just the opposite. Teaching about sex isn’t going to make kids want to go out there and have sex, or feel like sex is a casual thing. It just allows kids to make informed decisions about sex and to protect themselves. Without a sex ed class, students who do decided to engage in sexual activity will have to go by the information they have gotten from the interent, friends, or the media and usually the information is false or misleading. Basically, I feel that delibertly keeping people in the dark about important information is completely idiotic.

  4. Danielle on September 17th, 2008 8:55 pm

    I feel that knowledge is the greatest form of protection a person can have, whether it comes from the school or the parents. It is a positive action to teach sexual safety because parents have an emotional commitment to their children, and are unlikely to be accepting if the teen wants a sexual relationship with their partner. I think the greatest contributor to teen pregnancy is unprotected sex because the teen didn’t want their parents to know they were doing it, so they did not have access to birth control regularly. Biologically, teens will be “turned on” whether or not their parents are ready for it. I say be prepared because sex is a very real part of adulthood, and so are the responsibilities that go with it.

  5. Chelsea on September 18th, 2008 7:13 pm

    I believe that abstinence only is a very closed-minded way of viewing sex education. It breaches into topics of religion, personal values, and other things that should not be taught or manipulated in school beyond the elementary age. It makes adolescents fear sex more than understand it, and with a society like ours with sexual references on every corner, a person who is just learning about the world should not have to fear it any more than they do already.

    I was taught sex ed in a fairly unbiased manner through a “health” class in middle school that was more focused on STDs, abortion, and abstinence than health at all. It was not as radically abstinence-only has many people propose it should be, but it was enough for me to believe that there was some sort of elephant in the room. They were leaving out some kind of information, the other side to the story, that pretty much left everyone confused. Most kids found out from older brothers and sisters or friends the info they wanted, but kids shouldn’t have to sneak around to get the truth about sex. It should be offered to them.

  6. Cody on September 22nd, 2008 1:35 pm

    I think that Palin needs to be educated on the standards that have developed in our society. Teaching safe sex is one of the more positive approaches to the issue of having sex. I believe that everyone is very aware of the idea that young adults and teenagers are praticing sexual activity. If we are aware of this occuring, it is more proper to teach them safe sex than trying to change the way someone views the world. If someone wants to do something, they are going to do it. Young adults and teenagers are going to be having sex, educated or not. I understand promoting abstinance in the presence of a form of being safe but it cannot be left to stand on its own. I know that I talk about sex at least once a day, because it is so prominent. With this kind of presence I would rather individuals be educated about the dangers and how to protect themselves, than experimenting without any knowldege.

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