About 70 percent of OU students hail from Oklahoma, a state where 7,616 babies were born to women under the age of 19, and 49.3 percent of high school students admit that they’ve had sex by the time they get their diploma.
Given these numbers, why aren’t high schools teaching sex education?
Oklahoma state law does not mandate that sex education ever be taught in public school. Should a school venture into scandalous waters and teach sex education, their class must stress that abstinence is the only way to completely prevent pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and AIDS. They are never required to talk about condoms or any other form of birth control.
That’s not sex education.
That’s abstinence education, and it’s not working.
Oklahoma ranks seventh in the nation for the birth rate to ages 18 and 19.
In fact, according to the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, 70 percent of all teen births in Oklahoma were to teens who are old enough to attend OU.
That’s 4,662 babies, and this number does not account for miscarriages or abortions. The Guttmacher Institute reports 18 and 19-year-olds have 128 births per 1,000 teens.
Nationally, the numbers are just as shocking.
The National Campaign to Prevent Unplanned Pregnancy reported that 75 percent of unplanned pregnancies are to women under age 29; 40 percent of these pregnancies are to women with at least some college education. Seventy-two percent of unplanned pregnancies to 20-somethings are the woman’s second or higher pregnancy.
In stark contrast with Oklahoma, Vermont teens have just 20 births per 1,000 teens. The Green Mountain State requires that schools teach about abstinence, but schools must also teach about contraceptives and HIV/AIDS.
In 2007 Vermont, $69,885 was spent on abstinence-only-until-marriage education. Oklahoma spent $1,289,869 in that same year.
Clearly, abstinence education doesn’t work.
In 2007, the federal government surveyed recipients of Title V-abstinence education funds, including Oklahoma. This survey found no evidence of teens waiting until marriage to first have sex or even waiting until later in life to first have sex than their counterparts who learn about contraceptives.
The declining teenage birth rate is instead attributed to frank discussions about condoms and birth control.
However, just talking about contraceptives is not enough.
To provide truly responsible, comprehensive sex education, educators must talk about what happens if girls do get pregnant or if STIs are contracted. Because contraceptives are not 100 percent effective, stressing proper medical care is essential.
Often, the stigma attached to underage pregnancy and STIs prevents those afflicted from seeking medical help. In pregnancy, this is damaging to not only the mother but also the baby. Sexually transmitted diseases and infections, when left untreated, develop severe side effects, such as blindness, infertility and death. Furthermore, many STIs are curable, but when they are left untreated, they often spread very quickly from person to person.
By the time students get to OU, they should be able to focus on snagging that elusive A in American Federal Government rather than on making enough money to feed their children and pay tuition. Raising children is complicated at best. Add in studying and at least 12 hours of class, and the web of life gets even more tangled.
What we learn as adolescents carries over into college; our formative high school years do just that: they form us. Incorporating simple truths about contraceptives and sexual health into high school education systems has the ability to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy and STIs.
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kdbp1213 1 year, 8 months ago
it's simple. because we know that another human being is the (not always, i know) outcome of sex, then don't have sex. this could be taught to everybody regardless of age.
if you are willing to have sex, then you must be prepared for raising the child(ren). a moment of physical lust/love could change your life forever...........
DeeinOK 1 year, 8 months ago
Kate, superb article! I hope everyone hears your voice.
braceyourself 1 year, 8 months ago
kdbp1213 - Or you could just teach people to wear condoms, since people WILL have sex regardless of whether or not you tell them not to.
"If you are willing to have sex." - Okay, let's be honest. Get off your high horse. Everyone has sex, and no one should feel ashamed for having sex if it doesn't hurt anyone. What you're advocating is that we don't teach people, they get pregnant, and then the child is born into a family that doesn't want it. Congrats, you've created a crappy life for multiple people.
Also: ABORTION ON DEMAND!