Abstinence-only sex education

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Abstinence-only sex education is a form of sex education which emphasizes abstinence from sex, to the exclusion of all other types of sexual and reproductive health education, particularly regarding birth control and safe sex. This type of sex education promotes sexual abstinence until marriage and either completely avoids any discussion about the use of contraceptives, or only reveals failure rates associated with such use.

[edit] Criticism

Critics consider the promotion of abstinence-only sex education as one of the major efforts by the religious right to suppress sexual activity other than that which occurs between the parties to a lifelong, monogymous relationship.

As abstinence programs often teach that abstaining from sex is the only effective or acceptable method of avoiding pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, such programs are criticized for leaving young people uninformed about basic sexual and reproductive health issues, to the extent that they may be at higher risk of unwanted pregnancies (see teenage pregnancy).

The idea that sexual intercourse should only occur within marriage has serious implications for certain types of people for whom marriage is either not valued or desired, or is unavailable as an option, particularly homosexuals living in places where same-sex marriage is not legal or socially acceptable.

A 2004 analysis of 13 abstinence-only curricula which received United States government funding found that 11 contained factual errors.^[1] The errors included

• misrepresenting the failure rates of contraceptives
• misrepresenting the effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV transmission
• false claims that abortion increases the risk of infertility, premature birth for subsequent pregnancies, and ectopic pregnancy
• treating stereotypes about gender roles as scientific fact
• other scientific errors, e.g. stating that "twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create this new individual" (the actual number is 23).^[1]

[edit] See also

• Religious views on birth control
• Sexual norm
• Virginity pledge

[edit] References

Williams, Mary E. (Ed.). (2006). Sex: opposing viewpoints. Detroit: Greenhaven.

1. ^ ^{a b} United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform—Minority Staff, Special Investigations Division (December 2004). The content of federally-funded abstinence-only education programs (PDF). www.democrats.reform.house.gov. Retrieved on 2007-02-05.