For abstinence only sex education

See Coronavirus Updates for information on campus protocols. Two scientific review papers find abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and policies in the United States are ineffective because they do not delay sexual initiation or reduce sexual risk behaviors. According to the researchers, these programs also violate adolescent human rights, withhold medically accurate information, stigmatize or exclude many youth, reinforce harmful gender stereotypes, and undermine public health programs. Both papers are published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Skip navigation! Story from Politics. The Trump administration's efforts to reshape sex education in the U. The new guidelines require grantees to focus on " sexual risk avoidance " and "sexual risk reduction" programs — advocacy code for abstinence-only education. Morimoto added that not learning this information in school can even cause problems in their adult lives.

The government is also censoring sex education sections of a health booklet for teenage girls following criticisms by the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. The country sees 62 pregnancies per 1, teenagers aged — compared with a global average of 44 per 1, In the United States, Republicans have pushed abstinence-only sex education for more than a decade. But multiple studies have shown that teens do not put off having sex after being taught such curriculums.

Abstinence-only sex education now comprises 23 percent of sex education in the public schools the United States, up from 2 percent of the total in , according to a survey of 4, seventh- to 12th-grade teachers by the Alan Guttmacher Institute survey, a non-profit health research organization in New York City and Washington D. The study also found sex education today is much less likely to cover birth control, abortion, obtaining contraceptive and sexually transmitted diseases services, and sexual orientation, than it did in the late s. Teachers apparently feel abstinence-only courses are not getting the message across, the study reveals. The vast majority of the teachers surveyed think students need to learn more, and at a younger age, about sexually transmitted diseases, correct condom use and how to resist peer pressure, as well as abstinence. The debate over abstinence-only versus comprehensive sexual education programs has heated up in the last few years after the federal government began funding abstinence-only programs as part of the welfare reform bill.