The Fight for Abstinence Only Sex Education Versus Comprehensive Sex Education

In today’s world of education. Sex seems to be one of those topics that wants to be tossed out the window in schools because parents believe they should teach their own children about sex. But many of those same people believe that if we talk about it with kids, then they will want to have sex which sort of throws out the first thing I mentioned from actually happening.

Abstinence-only sex education, usually pushed by very religious people(also known as sexual risk avoidance education is a form of sex education that teaches not having sex outside of marriage. It often excludes other types of sexual and reproductive health education, such as birth control and safe sex. By definition it isn’t sex education.

As far as I am concerned, children need to receive quality sex education at school and have non-shaming conversations at home.

Evidence does not support the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education. It has been found to be ineffective in decreasing HIV risk in the developed world. It does not decrease rates of sexual activity or unplanned pregnancy when compared to comprehensive sex education.

The topic of abstinence-only education is controversial in the United States, with proponents claiming that comprehensive sex education encourages premarital sexual activity, and critics arguing that abstinence-only education is religiously motivated and that the approach has been proven ineffective and even detrimental to its own aims.