Sex Education Shoud be Taught Rather Than Abstinence Only

Knowing about disease obviously does not prevent disease, but knowing you have a disease can help prevent it from spreading. It is the power of knowledge which can help one lead a healthy life, and help prevent you from receiving an STD, not just knowing. Never once was it stated that knowing about the disease presents it, the direct quote would be, ". .. it is not just informing about the disease and what it is, but also how to protect yourself from the disease. Within safe sex education courses, one learns how to go about having sex in a way that is as safe as possible. Students learn to be tested, and have their partner tested for these diseases. Students also learn, that if they have these diseases, safe ways to have sex as to not transmit the disease, mainly through condom use, and or other forms of contraception. " Clearly stated it is knowing about the disease and prevention methods that will help not spread the disease, not merely and blatantly knowing will prevent. As for statistical and or anecdotal evidence, one fact about condom usage would be that "When used correctly, a male condom is about 98 per cent effective. " as for people who solely rely on birth control pills, about 8% become pregnant in the course of a year, so when combining the two methods, (Condoms and birth control pills) pregnancies are virtually obsolete. and although this debate is not a debate on which method prevents pregnancy, which my opponent is providing evidence for, clearly when using birth control pills and male condoms, and even adding a third contraceptive if one can, then pregnancies are pretty much impossible. "If a person becomes pregnant even though they were taught sex education then her partner or her parents might want her to marry then she would drop out of school to care for the baby, then her partner would drop out of school to support her then the baby would grow up in a home where both adults were thrown together because of principles or some sort of misplaced feeling of self righteousness, said baby would then grow up in a "broken home" then he/she might grow up as a gang banger or rapist or murderer take a pick. " If we are going to allow such drastic cases, one may say that if the population learned abstinence only education, and they enjoyed abstinence and did not want to have sexual intercourse, ten there would be no procreation eventually leading to the end of civilization as we know it, and that would not be a healthy and or safe lifestyle, and actually would be the end of the human race as we know it. Now this is clearly an over-dramatic statement such as the one my opponent has given, but i suppose this is valid to the claim? "In Uganda there was about to be an AIDS epidemic they used an ABC program abstinence, be faithful, and condoms. Granted their were C's but what helped these people was monogamy and abstinence. They went from 21% in 1991 to 6% in 2000 thanks to abstaining from sex before marriage and abstaining from sex outside marriage. While sex education might be realistic abstinence cause for a safer and healthier life style. " Safe sex education does also teach about abstinence(look to definition of sex education), so this method i believe would be a safe sex method, especially because there was the "C" in the method, which was condom. And the percentages, are these percents of AID's cases, and is the information provided not based on a third factor, which may be the mortality of the people from the poll given in 1991, creating the dip in the stats. Are the percents of new cases or cases overall? " I am still curious as to the reliability of these facts, and without clarification, I feel these statistics are irrelevant. "Then the conversation with their sex partner hey I want you to get tested for diseases or hey you gave me AIDS I'm sure teens are just dying to get in line for tests that will confirm their worst fears," If you are a concerned person with your body, and you do want to be safe, and use the education gained from safe sex education, you will not be embarrassed or afraid to be tested. It is not embarrassing. This would be similar to a person saying "Nah I don't want to go for a cancer screening because I'm afraid. " Fear is what will get you killed. If you are tested, and find out you do have AIDS, there are now medications that will help you live a lot longer, but i digress. If a person who learned safe sex education uses it properly, they would be tested prior to sexual intercourse, and if they did have intercourse without being tested, they would have used a condom, which is strongly advocated in any sex ed. course. The opponents example, I feel is invalid because those are individuals who clearly do not know the safe sex method. As a closing statement I would just like to say that learning safe sex education will provide a healthier and safe lifestyle. Knowledge is power, and safe sex education provides the knowledge to protect yourself while abstinence only provides no knowledge other than "save yourself until marriage. " With knowing safe sex education you are able to experience sexual intercourse, and share this intimacy with your significant other. you gain a strong personal bond with your significant other, which is obviously a great benefit. You learn how to take care of your body, by learning how to protect it from disease, to get yourself tested if you have a fear of being infected, and how not to get pregnant to the best of your ability. And yes I say to the best of your ability, because obviously abstinence is 100% effective in preventing pregnancy, but if you look do the definition of sexual education, abstinence is a component, not the sole component but a part none the less. Individuals learn how to be safe, (hence Safe Sex! ), and how to have a healthy sex life. . http://www.netdoctor.co.uk... . http://kidshealth.org...