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Sexual Education In America Essay

987 Words4 Pages

Sydney Hoffman
Mrs. Froelich
AP Language Arts 12
22 February 2015

Sexual Education in America
Sexual Education has the potential to be a powerful way to educate young adults and adolescents about the risks and consequences of sex. As early as 1912, the NEA (National Education Association) have been implementing sexual education. By the 1940s, education boards across the US made the announcement that sexual education is urgently required.The 1960’s sought the beginning of the current and widely controversial topic of sexual education in US schools. The goals of social hygiene and moral purity activists arose sexual health concerns in public health. Their goals were to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, stop masturbation and prostitution, …show more content…

Groups like Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, Moral Majority and the Eagle Forum spearheaded campaigns to oppose comprehensive sexuality education. “Aware of the changing times, these groups no longer argued for the complete removal of sexuality as a subject in school. Instead, they acknowledged the importance of sex education but contended there should be only one message: sexual behavior outside of marriage was unacceptable” (FoSE 1) “One of their early successes at the national level came as part of the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA), which was passed in 1981 and is widely considered the precursor to today’s abstinence-only-until-marriage programs” (FoSE 1) The goal of AFLA was three-fold: to prevent premarital teen pregnancy through “chastity and self-discipline;” to promote adoption among pregnant teens; and to care for pregnant and parenting teens.” (FoSE 1) AFLA supported the development of teaching the curriculum of Teen Aid and Sex Respect, two programs that would become one of many abstinence-only-until-marriage sexual education designed to control young people’s sexual behavior by instilling fear and

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