By Jane O’Brien (BBC, April 26, 2008)
Washington, USA - US lawmakers are investigating whether to cut government funding for health education programmes that promote sexual abstinence until marriage.
The move follows a report earlier this year from America’s leading health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which revealed one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease.
Opponents of abstinence education say the approach ignores the fact that teenagers are sexually active and fails to give them accurate medical information or advice on safer sex.
“We get sex-ed classes in school and that should be where teens get the right information - but that isn’t happening,” says 15-year-old Mildred, from Arizona, who volunteers as a peer educator with the pro-choice organisation Planned Parenthood.
“They don’t touch on subjects like sexuality, STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), birth control - it’s not allowed because of abstinence-only education. It leaves you on a cliff-hanger - and a lot of teenagers become sexually active in their middle school years.”
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