Em-URGE-ing Voices

Posts Tagged: comprehensive sex education

Trump’s Plan to Fund Abstinence-Only Sex Ed is Grossly Misled

Last Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that grants for sexual education programs available through the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program will favor programs that focus on abstinence-only sexual education. Both The Hill and The New York Times report that the grants will focus on supporting programs that follow one of two models: “sexual risk avoidance” and “sexual risk reduction.” The Times also notes that “the announcement … mentioned an ‘emphasis on cessation support,’ a phrase many involved in teen pregnancy programs interpreted as urging sexually active teenagers to stop having sex.” In essence, Trump’s administration is favoring abstinence-centric sex ed programs over comprehensive sexual education. They see avoidance as the main option, and the administration is leaning away from evidence-based programs. Here’s why this is a big… Read more »

The Consequences of Poor Sex-Ed

Recently, I stumbled on a sample of the abstinence book we used in my freshman health class in high school. Beside the fact it has not changed a single bit of content since 2003, its content is completely inaccurate. It hasn’t even changed the legal definition of marriage. It also provides small glimpse into the heteronormative conditioning that our inconsistent sex-education standards brings out. Starting with issue of even receiving some type of education, only 22 states require some type of sex-education curricula. Of those, 12 cover sexual orientation, and 9 have “no promo homo” laws that require open discrimination against queer youth. There are many school districts that also discriminate without help from their government. This fosters a hostile school and community environment for a teen who is out,… Read more »