Dr. Mohn is a doctor of internal medicine and Director of the Task Force on Teen Sexual Health for the NJ Physicians Resource Council. Those who support abstinence based sex education wish to provide teens with all the medical and contraceptive facts they need, but want to make sure that our youth will have sexual intercourse that is healthy and good, believing that occurs within the confines of marriage.
Medical facts can help to answer that question.
About 1 in 4 teens who have sex, acquire an STD 1 . Sixty percent of adolescent girls who had sex before age 15 have been coerced at least once 2 . Teenagers are more susceptible to STDs in general, because of their immature cervix and undeveloped immune system 4 . Nearly twenty percent of teen girls who have sex, become pregnant each year 5 . We need to tell them that sex can be healthy and good within a specific context.