Garay

Maria Garay
Beth Bailey
English 2010
March 9, 2015
Sex Education
Isnt it interesting to say that nearly one million teen girls get pregnant
each year? Nearly four out of ten young women get pregnant at least once
before they turn 20. How each year the federal government alone spends
about $40 billion to help families that began with a teenage birth. How
approximately four in ten adolescents between the ages of fifteen and
seventeen report that they are sexually active. How one in two sexually
active young people will get an STD by the age of 25.
The U.S. has the highest rates of teen pregnancy, birth, and abortion in
the industrialized world. In fact, the U.S. teen pregnancy and birth rates are
nearly double Canada's, at least four times those of France and Germany,
and more than eight times that of Japan. We are the leading Country in teen
pregnancy! This means we have more sexual activity going on between
adolescence, it also means that we are at a higher rate of having common
STDs. It can be more than one thing, they could be pressured into doing it,
they could be raped, and they could have been intoxicated. There are
hundreds of possibilities of why we have the highest rates in teen

pregnancies. From my point of view the most important reason why we are
the number leading in the world is due to the lack of education. We avoid
talking about sex and STDs, we feel uncomfortable talking about it due the
fact that we arent used to doing it.
These are all things that are going on around the world, and if we dont
do anything about them and educate people (especially adolescence) about
whats going on, the situations will keep getting worse. We will have
increases of teen pregnancies and STDs every year. Next thing you know the
human species will be extinct due to an STD, having to be AIDS. All because
were werent educated on how to be safe, how to prevent STDs, how to tell
someone you are being sexually active that you are infected without feeling
scared or judged. That is a huge problem that we have, many people infect
other people due to the fact that they are afraid of telling their sexual
partner that they are infected. They keep it to themselves and not say
anything, it becomes a problem because then they infect someone else.
They could avoid infecting someone else if they knew how to properly
deal with it and tell their partner and how to protect themselves from
infecting someone else if they can. We need to extend the way teachers
teach about Sex and STDs, make it something that is not only recommended
but something that is forced. It has to be a forced class in order to graduate,
and make it specifically on Sex education, not on "health" Because yes
health does cover the subject but it does not go into broad detail. They do it

quick and easy, this is cause of the fact that people dont want to feel
uncomfortable talking about it. It is a part of life, it happens every day; its a
way of life. War is part of life and it happens every day, it may not be in
everyones life but it is there and we're taught about it, specially, with dates
and details. So why not do that with sex? When it happens more often than
war does, where its all around us, where we were created by it!
I guarantee that if we were to educate every student on what can
happen, how it happens, how to prevent STDs. We would have rates of teen
pregnancy and STDs going down drastically. Pregnancy is very common
amongst teens, but STDs are common amongst everyone, they are
everywhere and are spreading like a wild a fire. The National Overview of
STDs in 2010 reported that there were a total of 1,307,893 cases of the STD
Chlamydia infection reported to the Center of Disease Control (CDC). This is
the largest number of cases ever reported to the CDC for any condition!
Chlamydia by region during 2001-2010 rates increased in every region. In
2010 we had a total of 309,341 gonorrhea cases in the United States. A rate
of 100.8 cases per 100,000 population. In 2010 a total of 13,774 cases of
P&S Syphilis were reported to CDC.
These numbers will continue to increase if we do not make a change
and inforce sex education in all schools. "Sex education should be continued
to be supported in formal settings, such as schools, and to be the most
effective, should occur before youth engage in sexual intercourse for the first

time."- Trisha Mueller In the article "Sex Ed Works" they talk about how it
doesn't matter what kind of sex education teens or kids are receiving
anything is helpful and it is more likely for them to participate in safer sex
when they choose to, meaning they would use birth control. Where as if they
were never informed or taught how to be safe "if" it were to happen they
wouldn't be safe and that would cause an accidental pregnancy.
Another problem that happens is we start getting a lot of teen drop
outs because of pregnancy, the female drops because they start taking care
of the baby and they can't deal with the stress of going to school, doing
homework and taking care of a baby. Another reason they drop out when
they get pregnant is because they need to get a job to take care of the baby
and do what they can to support the baby they choose to work rather then
get an education. A study done by WYMAN they say that 1 in 3 moms have
neither a diploma or a G.E.D. because they couldn't do it.
We could change all of these problems like teen pregnancies, STD's,
and drop outs if we enforced some sort of sex education in every school. It
would help graduation rates increase, STD and teen pregnancies would drop
drastically. This would benefit everyone in a better way. We need to open our
eyes up and face reality and something to help the innocent protect their
future because if we don't it will only get worse. Like they say, "Curiosity
killed the cat", we don't want any of this to happen to the kids now and in

future generations because of curiosity. So let's make a change and go sex

ed!

Works Cited
-Pan, Deborah. "No Matter The Approach, Sex Ed Works." <i>ABC</i>. ABC
News, 29 Dec. 2007. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.
&lt;http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Sex/story?id=4027265&gt;.

-"Teen Pregnancy and Dropout." <i>Real Teens. Real Life. Real Results.</i>
WYMAN, 20 June 2012. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. &lt;http://wymancenter.org/newstudy-links-teen-pregnancy-and-dropout-spotlights-solutions/?
gclid=Cj0KEQiA9eamBRDqvIz_qPbVteABEiQAnIBTEJMaXACocRAxvHhbudFozZ
YFh1We-3L6CXMY0oBMh70aAoGg8P8HAQ&gt;.