What is abstinence? Abstinence is the practice of not having sex for a long period of time or until marriage. In most cases, the practice of abstinence is to refrain from getting pregnant. Abstinence is 100% effective with preventing pregnancy. If a couple is opposed to having sex, then, the sperm cannot fertilize an egg making it impossible to get pregnant. With practicing abstinence, you don’t have to be a virgin. Often, people who have had sex may decide not to continue to have sex. Abstinence is also an effective way in protecting people from receiving a sexually transmitted disease (STD). STDs can be obtained through oral or anal sex or can even be spread by intimate skin to skin contact. The skin to skin contact, without penetration, can spread herpes and genital warts. In today’s society, …show more content…
It is concerning because of the health and pregnancy risks that accompany teenage sexual activity. If more schools adopt abstinence-based sex education, the course may have an impact on reducing the number of teens that are having premarital sex and not practicing abstinence. However, the effectiveness of abstinence programs has caused discussions of controversy and studies have been administered to determine how useful these programs are and will be when attempting to decrease the number of teenage sexual activity.
One approach to safe sex, which is the use of contraceptives, led teenagers to believe that contraceptives are safe for sexual intercourse (Sexual Health Update, 1999). In fact, medical evidence has proven that abstinence is the only reliable and trustworthy choice in trying to avoid pregnancy. School based health clinics have also started to distribute birth control and those schools, evidence shows that abstinence programs were the most effective technique for preventing adolescent sexual activity and pregnancies (Khouzem,