Posts with the tag sex education

Shelby Knox Screening Inspires Discussion About Sex Education

misspronounced — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:18:57 EST

Illustration: Matt Bors

On October 15th Campus Progress teamed up with the University of Maryland Baltimore County Freedom Alliance to show the film The Education of Shelby Knox. Meeting at the University Cabaret, about twenty people showed up to watch the film and to discuss the role of sex education in the United States.

Following a fifteen year-old girl in Texas, Shelby Knox displays how the lack of comprehensive sex education in our school systems often leads, as it did in Texas, to high rates of STDs and pregnancies. It accurately portrays the real-life consequences of implemented policies that are often written hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Staying after the screening, attendees said the film made them think about other parts of the United States, and the diverse difficulties they face. Most colleges provide an environment where sex, sex education, and protection are talked about without objection. This film reminded students that there are parts of the country where people refuse to teach sex education because they want everyone to only have sex within marriage.

Turning Down Money for Abstinence-Only

sekai.no.kakumei — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:42:29 EDT

Sex education has been a hot topic in the government and schools for years: do we teach abstinence-only, which includes inaccurate scientific information and scare tactics, or comprehensive sex education, which discusses condoms and, *gasp*, sex. The Bush Administration has been promoting abstinence-only education from the start, despite a study done by the Mathematica Policy Research group in April 2007 showing that participants of abstinence-only programs started having sex and had the same number of partners as non-participants. According to an Associated Press article released today, more states are dropping funding for abstinence-only education, and it’s sending a message.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex and Politics

Kay Steiger — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:16:53 EDT

Salon has a great rundown of the basics of policy that has to do with birth control, sex ed, and Plan B. Check it out.

25 Percent of Teen Girls Have at Least 1 STD

Kayla — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:14:53 EDT

The Associated Press reports on a Center for Disease Control study found that one in four teen girls have at least one STD. Human papillomaviruses, the virus that can cause cervical cancer, was found to be the most prevalent STD. Nearly half of the black teenagers studied had at least one STD.

A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls - nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

About half of the girls acknowledged ever having sex; among them, the rate was 40 percent. While some teens define sex as only intercourse, other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some infections.

Something is not working in American sex education. My bet is on abstinence-only programs.

Students Suspended for Advocating Sex Ed

Annika — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:43:51 EST

Two 9th graders in Illinois were suspended for protesting their junior high’s abstinence only sex ed by wearing t-shirts adorned with unopened condoms and the slogan “Safe Sex or No Sex.”

Cheyenne Bird, 14, and Tori Shoemaker, 15, felt that the abstinence-only sex ed their school mandates for 6th and 8th graders insufficiently prepares students for senior high. Shoemaker told a local tv reporter, “We're more mature, we're going up to the high school, and teenagers are going to do what they do.”

Their school superintendent called the shirts “a distraction at school” and “inappropriate,” and suspended the girls for two days. Mmhm nothing’s inappropriate like students asking for more knowledge and better education—and getting shot down. “We were supporting safe sex, it's something we believe in and we shouldn't get suspended. It’s freedom of speech,” said Shoemaker.

Although speech like theirs is far from protected in public high schools, these girls are on the right track. “Safe Sex or No Sex” is an excellent slogan for high school sex education; it straddles the line between encouraging contraception and encouraging sex. Young people who are going to have sex anyway need to know how to protect themselves from disease and pregnancy. As Vic Shoemaker, Tori’s dad, told reporters, “I'm realistic, I'd like to see them not do it at all before they get married, but look at all the teenagers coming up pregnant.”

Seriously—when 9th graders are asking for comprehensive sex ed, and they’re genuinely worried about their peers entering senior high ill-equipped, shouldn’t we give it to them?

via Jezebel.

Update: Peter Rotherberg also covered it here.

Why I'm Pro-Choice

Annika — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:07:40 EST

I’ve been working on this post all day, trying to make my opinions on abortion rights sound cool or heartfelt or something. The point is: I’m pro-choice because some of my closest friends have had abortions. It’s an extremely difficult decision to make, and abortion is an ugly, ugly thing that they’ve spent a lot of time and heartache dealing with. Anyone who suggests that women take it lightly, or that women don’t comprehend the decision they’re making, needs to spend less time humanizing fetuses and more time talking to real women.

I’m all for political activism and the power of impassioned arguments—I blog about sexual politics all the time, I was the president of the Women’s Issues Organization in college, and I bring up sex ed approximately once every 5 minutes—but talking to a close friend about her abortion is an irreplaceable, undeniably jarring experience. And difficult though the decision is, none of my friends regret their abortions. Their circumstances are wildly different, but they all agree that they were not responsible enough, or ready enough, or prepared enough to raise a child.

Looking at other women I care deeply about—like my younger sister, who wants to go to law school in a couple years—I hope and pray that they never have to make the choice to have an abortion. But if they are, they deserve to have a safe, legal, unobstructed choice.

What Does Our Abortion Rate Say About Us?

Annika — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:15:31 EST

A recently completed study by the Guttmacher Institute found that 1.2 million abortions were performed in America in 2005—the lowest annual rate since 1976. Abortion rates in the U.S. have been dropping fairly steadily since the early 1990s.

While the study doesn’t identify specific causes for the drop, its researchers have some ideas:

"It could be more women using contraception and not having as many unintended pregnancies. It could be more restrictions on abortions making it more difficult for women to obtain abortion services. It could be a combination of these and other dynamics," said Rachel K. Jones of the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health research organization, which published the report in the March issue of the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

While the report’s findings are promising for anyone interested in making abortion safe and rare, some of its specifics are less encouraging. 87% of counties in the U.S. lack an abortion provider—which means that 24% of women who live in metropolitan counties and 92% of women who live in nonmetropolitan counties face serious barriers to access.

I’m also curious about the age distribution of the study, which isn’t broken down in the copy I read. According to other info from Guttmacher, 33% of abortions are obtained by women aged 20-25, and 17% of abortions are obtained by teenagers. The teen birth rate jumped in 2005 for the first time in over 15 years, likely due in large part to the simultaneous promulgation and ineffectiveness of abstinence-only sex education.

So what do we make of these seemingly conflicted numbers? Fewer women are having abortions, but more young women are getting pregnant. It seems we’ve failed to provide young women with the tools they need to prevent unwanted pregnancy in the first place: sufficient education about and access to birth control. It’s time to give up on what we know doesn’t work—if this isn’t an argument for eschewing abstinence-only in favor of comprehensive sex ed, I don’t know what is.

Faulty Studies used to Promote Conservative Agenda for Abstinence

Jamie Friedman — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:25:45 EST

In February, the Journal of Youth and Adolescence published a longitudinal study performed by a groups of researchers from Ohio State that indicated a strong connection between the onset of teenage sexual behavior and delinquency. Wait…. what? Their findings suggest the classic conservative notion that “sex is bad” and so concluded that the loss of virginity at a relatively young age appears to, as the researchers wrote, "open the doorway to problem behaviors." (Check it out on the Post). This is brilliant! What better way to continue the hoax of abstinence only education than to show that having sex no longer solely implies shaky morals, but in fact, now leads to a full blown criminal record?

Newsflash: Abstinence-Only Sex Ed is Pointless

Annika — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:42:55 EST

According to a study by the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, abstinence-only sex ed has no effect on the sexual practices of teenagers.

And, according to the researcher, comprehensive sex ed programs

improved teens' knowledge about the risks and consequences of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and gave them greater "confidence in their ability to say 'no' to unwanted sex."

I had pretty fabulous sex ed at my public high school, and I'm always shocked when I hear about the ridiculous stuff that my friends observed in less competent programs--hearing about their experiences makes me realize how crucial it is to make comprehensive sex ed a priority in public education. This study is one more in a long line of reasons to ditch abstinence-only programs and instead respect high school students enough to offer them practical knowledge about sexual health.

via Feministing, naturally.

$3,500 for a Sex Ed Video

Tanya Paperny — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:48:56 EDT

How's that for an attention-grabbing headline? :)

Reproductive Health Reality Check is sponsoring a video contest: Using digital video technology, tell us what your sex ed experience was like OR tell us how you would redesign sex ed for the future!

Wrap It Up

Zach Marks — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:13:11 EDT

A day after I write a piece about making progress in the field of sexual health, I get bumped back two spaces. I take a bathroom break but something on the office TV stops me in my tracks en route from the cubicle to bladder relief.

SEX!!! Now That I Have Your Attention, Let’s Talk About…Sex Education

sekai.no.kakumei — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:27:40 EDT

America loves sex, doesn’t it? Take a look at movies, TV, or any type of media: sex, sex, sex! And, on the same page, we are also a country of high moral standard. The government provides funding to states for abstinence-only education. A few mixed messages, huh? Here’s something to make your blood boil: over the past ten years, the Senate has poured $1.5 billion dollars into abstinence-only sex education programs. Has it decreased the number of teenage pregnancies? NO! According to the study done by the Mathematica Policy Research group, the number of pregnancies, in direct correlation to the abstinence-only programs, has increased (and we’re not talking about young marriages here). Guess teenagers aren’t following the abstinence program too closely.

So that brings us to the topic of comprehensive sex education. Now, before the conservatives start blaming the liberals for killing babies and corrupting America’s youth (after all, abstinence-only is solidifying our moral fiber…excuse my cynicism), it’s comprehensive. That means abstinence is taught along with condoms. This is in the form of the Responsible Education About Life Act (REAL Act, S. 972, H.R. 1653). The set up is very similar to Title V, which allots the money for the abstinence-only education. Here’s the breakdown: