Sex Among Teens

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Sex Education Among Young Teens The United States has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy among industrialized nations. One out of ten girls becomes pregnant by the age of twenty. Many pregnancies are unintended or unplanned, and most of these pregnancies result in children born to unmarried teens without a method of supporting themselves. Teenage pregnancy rates require immediate action, and it must come in the form of increased sexual education in high schools, daycare facilities available at high schools to keep young mothers in school, and finding a way to mandate increased involvement from fathers. This crisis of teenage pregnancy and unplanned parenthood must be addressed. The scale and importance of immediate, short-term sexual and reproductive health problems among adolescents is significant (Ross 2). Educating teenagers about contraception makes those young people more likely to use contraception when they begin having sex. As one author asserts, “Contraceptive focused sex education programs may be effective at reducing risky sexual behavior among those who participate” (Kearney 2). Teaching teenagers about contraceptive options decreases teen pregnancy rates. Critics of sex education in schools argue that sex education can lead to increased sexual activity, but this is a false perception. In fact, strong evidence indicates that sexual education does not encourage increased sexual activity or sexual risk (Ross 1).Sex education programs would be a great way to prevent sexual activity because it could show teens the consequence of being sexually active. Once a teen parent has a child she has to figure out how she can attend school and afford child care. Educating these mothers could help prevent their children from becoming future teenage parents themselves, so the cycle of parenthood is stopped. School based care centers make it easier for the
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