By Jessica Vozel/North Star Writers Group
This week, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the alarming results of their study of sexually transmitted disease rates among young women, the first of its kind. According to the study, one in four teenage girls aged 14 to 19 has an STD. The most common infection among the teens studied was the human papillomavirus (HPV), a virus that includes various strains – the most dangerous among them being the leading cause of cervical cancer. The study also found that young African-American women are disproportionately affected. Nearly half have an STD.
If we needed further proof that abstinence-only education is not working, these numbers should certainly be convincing. I’m not holding my breath that President Bush will acknowledge this serious problem at all, let alone reconsider his ideological belief that sex won’t happen amongst non-married young people unless educators sully their minds with talk of condoms and protecting themselves. Hopefully, then, the man or woman who becomes our next president will take this issue seriously and overhaul the way sex is taught in our schools. Young people, apparently, know what sex is without the help of their elders. But as this study suggests, they are not aware of the dangers and the necessity of protecting themselves from those dangers.
Some conservatives and abstinence-only advocates may argue that young people are educated about the dangers of STDs in abstinence-only programs. While this may be true, they are reminded ad nauseum that abstinence is their only defense against these infections.
Even in the 1950s, the supposed golden age of purity and decorum, young people were having sex before marriage. Now, in the sex-saturated 2000s, it should come as no surprise that teenagers are giving into temptation, even as they are told that having sex before marriage is shameful and impure (and perhaps even because they are told this).
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