Growth and Popularity in The United States
Starting primarily in the 1980s and 1990s, the popularity of the "abstinence plus" sex education program grew into a common method of teaching students, in the United States, about sexuality. The program understood that it would not be possible to stop all teenagers from having sex, but still stressed that abstinence is the only guaranteed way of avoiding unwanted pregnancies and contraction of STDs. The most important message to teens from the program comes from Dr. Joycelyn Elders, President Clinton's first Surgeon General, that "if they have a baby there is an 80% likelihood they'll be poor, ignorant, and slaves for the rest of their lives." In 1997 the Department of Health and Human Services established a "Girl Power!" campaign focusing on girls ages 9–14 which encouraged abstinence as a form of empowerment. For those who would reject abstinence, though, abstinence-only messages provided little to no hope to prevent pregnancy and spread of disease. To account for this, some states included information about contraceptives in their sex education programs along with encouragement for students to be abstinent. Of the states that, in 1995, required abstinence education, fourteen also included the use of contraception within the curriculum.
In September 1995, Hawaii passed the Abstinence-Based Education Policy. (Policy # 2110). It is meant to support abstinence and help develop skills to continue abstinence, help teens who have had sexual intercourse to abstain from further, and to proved teens with information on contraceptives and methods for preventing sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.
HIV/AIDS is one of the leading causes of deaths in the United States and 1 in 300 people are living with HIV/AIDS. Around one million people have HIV/AIDS in the United States. More than 524,000 people in the United States have died of HIV/AIDS. Around 40,000 people are infected each year.
Read more about this topic: Abstinence, Be Faithful, Use A Condom
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—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)