Would you believe me if I told you that touching someone’s leg can get you pregnant?

Would you believe it if you were in the sixth grade and I was your health teacher? In the article

“2018 Sex Ed State Legislative Mid-Year Report” by the Sexuality Information and

Education Council of the United States also known as SIECUS, it is revealed that 21 states do

not require sex education to be age appropriate, medically accurate, or evidence based, this

means that 21 states allow their health teachers to lie to their students. This topic is important to

discuss because it is difficult and dangerous for people to have college relationships with people

who don’t know accurate facts about STIs, and pregnancy. I have been passionate about this

topic for many years and I have done extensive research for this speech. Loads of data and

surveys have led to a single conclusion. The U.S. Congress should pass legislation stating that

medically accurate, comprehensive sex education should be mandated in all 50 states. I will tell

you about the lack of sex education, the ways to fix the issue, and the results of fixing this issue.

First, we need to discuss why the lack of sexual education is an issue. On the website

National Conference of State Legislatures in the article “State Policies on Sex Education in

Schools” posted on December 21st, 2016 by two Health Policy Specialists, Kate Blackman

and Samantha Scotti, it is stated that the teen birth rate is the highest in America than in any

other well-developed country. In the United States about one of every four girls will become

pregnant at least once by their 20th birthday. The reason that this is happening is because

teenagers are not being taught in high school how to properly protect themselves from

pregnancy. Using information from the article “State Laws and Policies Across the United

States” published in 2017 by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the

United States as well as information from the report “National Center for Health Statistics”

published in 2016 by the Centers for Disease Control I created these charts. The first chart
shows the states that require their sexual education to cover or stress abstinence the dark purple

means they are mandated to stress abstinence and the light purple means they are mandated to

cover it. The second chart shows the states that require their sexual education to be medically

accurate. The third chart shows the amount of teen births per state on a scale per 1,000 the darker

the purple is the more births there are. The graphs show the states that have abstinence stressed

in their education as well as do not require medical accuracy typically fit into the trend of being

the states with the highest birth rates. Now that you are informed of the problems associated with

sexual education in the United States we can now discuss what can be done to fix these

problems.

The most important thing that can be done to fix the problems of teen pregnancies and

STIs in the United States is to increase the amount of effective education that people are getting

in high school. There are two types of sexual education that are offered in schools. They are

titled Comprehensive Sex Education or (CSE) for short and Abstinence-Only Until Marriage

Education or (AOE). In the novel “The Sex Education Debates” published in 2013 and

written by a professor of educational policy studies, Nancy Kendall explains how CSE

teaches about contraception including the daily birth control pill, the shot, the patch, intrauterine

devices or IUDs, the arm implant, and condoms. She also describes AOE as being the teaching

that the only option for unmarried people is abstinence. In light of these definitions sex education

should not be a taboo issue any longer, the secretive nature of the subject is what leads to the

high amounts of pregnancies that young people are experiencing. According to the article “Safe

Sex or No Sex” published in 2004, written by Professor Tracey Chang CSE provides the

solution to pregnancy by showing young adults the proper forms of preventive measures. The

reason why AOE does not provide the solution is because they teach that abstinence is the only
100% positive way to prevent pregnancy and they do not mention any other forms of birth

control. In order to fix the problems of high rates of teen pregnancy the U.S. Department of

Health and Human Services must begin working to propose a law that mandates medically

accurate comprehensive sex education in order to protect the teens of this nation. Now that we

have discussed that mandating medically accurate Comprehensive Sex Education is the ideal

way to reduce teen pregnancies we can talk about what how this law would affect the country.

If comprehensive sex education was mandated as a direct result of this teen pregnancies

would be decreased. According to Planned Parenthood in the article “What’s the State of

Sex Education in the US” published in 2018 43% of females and 57% of males were not

taught information on contraception prior to their first time engaging in sex. This is an alarming

statistic because in order to prevent from pregnancy young adults need to learn about

preventative measures before they engage in sex. Also, according to the article “Abstinence-

Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates” written in 2011 by Kathrin and David Hall

their test shows that there is a correlation between abstinence only education and higher rates of

teen pregnancy. CSE programs were implemented in all high school classrooms in the United

States, the rates of teen pregnancy cases would be reduced because they would receive quality

education prior to their first sexual interaction teaching them how to protect themselves from

pregnancy. Now that we have discussed how lives in America would be changed by the

mandating of comprehensive sex education we can discuss what you as an audience member can

do to improve sex education.

Overall, my goal for sex education is that the U.S. Congress will mandate medically

accurate comprehensive sex education in all 50 states. This goal is essential to prevent the high

amount of pregnancies among young adults and maintain the safety of our youth. This is done by
teaching accurate information. I challenge you to do one of two things, either take HERS 204

and let professor Mettile teach you accurate information on sexual health if you missed out on it

in high school; or talk to one of your friends about sex and help stop the myths of sex from

spreading further. All I want is for you to get informed, get talking, and get protected.