Abstinence-only campaign fails to completely address issue

House Editorial

One speech communications class is working with a local teen pregnancy center to promote sexual abstinence through a media campaign.

The Shenandoah Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative hopes to change social norms with this campaign, but they have been limited to exclusively promoting abstinence by the grant they received.

Abstinence is undoubtedly the most effective way for teenagers to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. However, teaching abstinence-only is leaving out half the battle — that is educating people on what to do if they have sex.

The Initiative is right in that sex before marriage has become a social norm, but trying to change the norm is something that can only be done by acknowledging the truth — teens know about sex and will have it.

On primetime television, 75 percent of shows include sexual content, according to The Kaiser Family Foundation. A book titled "Teens, Sex, & the Media" reports that teens ages 13 to 15 rank entertainment media as the top source of information about sexuality and sexual health.

Unfortunately, when two people in a soap opera begin to have sex, they do not stop and say, "Wait, we need to wear a condom."

If media don’t teach adolescents how to use protection, and families and society don’t teach adolescents how to use protection, then chances are they won’t. And they won’t learn about the consequences, either. Yes, abstinence is the best form of contraception. But there are alternatives, and teens should know about them.

Limiting a sexual awareness campaign to abstinence-only is teaching students to ignore the problem. Pre-marital sex is not something to be taken lightly, and when students choose to engage in it, they should know how to handle themselves.

Believing that students everywhere will simply choose abstinence is naïve and dangerous. Sex always has been — and always will be — an integral part of society. Education about contraceptive and safe-sex options is crucial to preventing unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

When one in five teens are already sexually active by age 15, as stated in a Youth Data Survey published by the Office on Children and Youth, it becomes apparent that this age group plans to make its own decisions on whether or not to have sex — let’s teach them all their options.