In the article, the president of UF’s branch of Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood, mentioned sex-ed policies in schools.
“There’s a lot of ignorance in our age group about sexual health, but it isn’t really our fault,” she said. “Florida teenagers are entering adulthood without any practical knowledge of their own anatomy or bodily functions.”
Although UF offers a number of sexual-health resources, the crux of the problem lies in Florida schools’ faulty, disjointed sex-ed programs.
According to ABC Action News, “In 2012, the CDC released startling statistics about Florida teens. There were 682 reported cases of HIV, more than 27,000 STD cases in general, and almost 16,000 babies born to teenagers.”
Hillsborough County is planning to apply for a federal grant that’s currently available in 32 school districts in Florida, and if it receives grant funds, county officials are looking to improve their sex-ed structure. The grant would provide teachers “extensive training in comprehensive sexuality and explain how to implement it in school.”
Although this may seem like a step forward, the grant would still promote abstinence education, which has been proven ineffective.
PolicyMic.com reported, “Studies show that conservative states, due to other factors such as religious and moral beliefs, are most likely to implement abstinence-only sex education in schools. Ironically, it is these states that suffer the highest rate of teen pregnancies and STD infection.”
“Stanger-Hall and Hall discovered that the states with the lowest teen pregnancy rates institute ‘abstinence-plus’ sex education, ensuring that abstinence and information about sexual health and contraceptives are both covered,” PolicyMic stated.
Young adults need comprehensive sex education — not the “Mean Girls” don’t-have-sex-because-you-WILL-get-pregnant-and-die abstinence-only drivel. It doesn’t work, and it doesn’t prepare high school kids for college, where morals are a little looser and casual sex is commonplace.
To be sure, abstinence education isn’t a bad thing — after all, abstinence is the only birth-control method with a 100-percent-guaranteed success rate. Abstinence is a personal choice many people choose to make, and that’s perfectly fine.
But not everyone wants to abstain, and those young adults who want to become sexually active should have access to educational resources. According to Planned Parenthood, Florida doesn’t have any statewide standards for sex education, while 78 percent of Floridians support comprehensive sex education.
Sex education shouldn’t be driven by a political agenda, and it should be accessible to high school kids across the state. If Florida doesn’t implement a standardized sex-ed program, rates of teen pregnancies and STDs will remain stalemate at best or continue to climb at worst.
A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 11/13/2013 under the headline "UF not responsible for drop in sexual health rankings"
