Teen Sexuality

In the trials and tribulations of the awkward teen years, one thing that may be of high apprehension is sex. Though it is an extremely personal and touchy issue upon families, it should still be discussed and not avoided. Some feel differently, and for that many students learn about sex from school. However; as a personal issue, sex talks should stay within the confines of a home and should not be taught in schools.
In today's society, it is not uncommon to walk down the street and see young teens either pregnant or holding their baby. For years teen pregnancy has been a problem, and has been increasing. Is the reason why they are becoming pregnant is because they were uneducated on sex? Or is it that they were mislead into thinking that they were safe in having sex rather than being abstinent? Some answer yes to these questions and blame it on sex education is the schools (Bender). Many feel that sex education is beneficial in aiding in the decrease of teen pregnancies, when really this is false (Kilpatrick). Some sex education classes have been proven to be unconstructive and even encouraging to teenage sexual intercourse. In 1976, 60% percent of seniors took sex education in school. In 1985, 70% took sex education in school, and in that increase of students becoming educated, more than half of America's teens had had sex before they were 17 years old (Schlafly). Teen pregnancy rates right now are at an all time high, but the astonishing fact is that teen pregnancies were on a sharp decline before the sex education programs were instilled in schools all over the country (Turque). How can sex education be effective with numbers like this? This clearly shows how ineffective sex education is.
Even with sex education, more than one million teenage girls every year become pregnant, and more than half will be under 18. Every year more than 500,000 teen age girls have abortions (Schlafly). Unwed teen-age births rose a remarkable 200 percent between 1960 and 1980.... [continues]

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