Abstinence-Only Education

In recent years, the question of whether schools should teach abstinence only programs or comprehensive sex education has been debated rigorously. Through his 2013 published piece, “Educating for Character in the Sexual Domain”, author Thomas Lickona focuses on the benefits of abstinence only programs. He uses the argument that abstinence creates character in today’s youth and cites multiple sources that support his viewpoint. On the other side of the discussion, authors of the article “Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.S.”, David Hall and Kathrin Stanger-Hall address the lack of efficiency abstinence only programs provide. Published in 2011, their article relies heavily on
Lickona declares the benefits of remaining abstinent saying that: [it] ensures that children will have two married parents… [it is] good for parent-child relationships… [it is] associated with more virtuous behavior… and [teens] do better in school” (203). All of these advantages focus mainly on the emotional aspects of abstinence and how they affect a teen’s behavior. Through abstinence, Lickona’s examples argue that adolescents will grow in self-confidence and self-respect, which in turn results in the reduction of out of wedlock pregnancies and reduces the risk of STDs. This particular piece of evidence shows that high moral codes turns into safer choices in a teen’s
The two authors gathered all available state information about abstinence only programs in the year 2005 and came to the conclusion that: “…abstinence only education does not reduce and likely increases teen pregnancy rates across states” (2). The article provides different types of charts that create a visual of the data collected. The use of the visual aids helps the reader interpret the research in a manner that is easy to understand and seems more tangible. The authors also examined whether certain factors, such as socio-economics, educational attainment, ethnic composition, and Medicaid waivers for family planning influenced the data collected, played a part in determining data results. Their research did find that these factors had an impact of the information collected and the results were published in the article with the other