Reproductive Rights and Sex Education in Schools

Today in society there are many different ways children are being taught about sex in our schools. They are taught about different consequences that can happen as a result of unprotected and protected sex, as well as precautionary measures if sex is a choice that is taken as a young adult or teenager. Some schools go as far as providing teens with protection such as condoms, but isn't this being a sort of hypocrite in a way? I mean honestly why would you tell a teen to not have sex and then hand out protection? It may sound a bit irrational, but in fact teens are taught all about the negative consequences more so than of abstinence or no sex at all. Abstinence is of course the safest sex around in todays' society. There are sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancies, and AIDS/HIV as well (which is life threatening) as negative consequences of having sex protected or unprotected.

Today's sex education is decided by the schools and the states instead of there being a federal regulation on sex education. They are the ones who decide when and where it is taught, and how it is taught is left up to the schools administration. Los Angeles Times stated that administration among Los Angeles Schools believes the rising number of pregnancies may be in correlation with sex education programs from the 70's and can be traced to the same year according to (Rush H. Limbaugh III, 752). Outer-course was introduced to Los Angeles by school administration as a way to deter teens from having sex by using different masturbation methods. They thought that using a deterring factor teens in society would turn to this instead in turn. Studies have shown there is no definite factor in how sex education is taught in schools decreases the number of sexually active teens. If studies show that different sex education programs don't make a difference does this mean that this is just expected behavior from teens of today's generation? I'd like to say that maybe television and advertising of things of sexual nature would be an influence and so would a child who is exposed to it. I think kids that are unhappy also turn to sex as a form of attention or just an escape goat to get out of the house by getting pregnant. All these are not reflected by any different ways of teaching sex education. Today's society is way too far gone in my opinion to make any difference but it is still most definitely important to introduce sex to children between the ages of 10 and up. Some professionals say it is best to introduce the simple things first and gradually go into things with a child for it to be effective. I agree.

In some states abortion may be legal, but in some it is not. What could be the difference if it was banned and outlawed for an abortion to take place within the United States? Would teen pregnancies go up or down? This could be a possible outcome for abortions by putting laws in place on WHEN to perform an abortion. According to the economist.com Guttmacher report abortion rates among teens of different ethnicities varies even though the overall rate of teens who has an abortion had dropped by 19 percent in states where abortion had become illegal from 1988-2005. (theeconomist.com)This study proves that making abortion illegal can be a determining factor of decreasing the number of teen pregnancies along with normal sex education courses in schools.

Some sex educations go as far as teaching about different sexual orientated people such as what homosexual and heterosexual is. In one sense I see where this would be important for a young teen to be introduced to what being gay and lesbian is, but to me this is kind of crossing the line. Some religious affiliations don't believe that their children should be taught such things in school and that school is a time for learning and they may just simply not want them to be taught such things. Feelings towards religion in school is similar where It is something that should be taught by an adult at home and explained to in by the parents who may or may not support homosexuality.