Should 'Abstinence-Only' Sex-Ed be Taught in Public Schools?

Argument for Abstinence Education

Teens are at an unstable age where emotional instability, impulsive behavior, and increased hormone production takes control of their lives. These factors put teens at high risk of pregnancy without proper sex education. According to a reporter on "Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health", teens participate in lascivious sexual activity because they want to fulfill their individual needs of intimacy, social status, and pleasure. Teens live under tremendous peer pressure, and want to fit in. Having sex propels the teen's social status higher despite the added risks involved.No matter how tough an abstinence health class can try, teens will put their popularity status before a teacher or values learned in class. Teens are at a time in their lives where there is no balance,and everything is fluctuating all at once, which alters the choices made by teenagers.
Instead of focusing on the repetitive negatives of STDs and pregnancy, the focal point should be helping teens find alternative ways of increasing social status, finding intimacy, and pleasure. Teenagers are sexual beings, and what they are feeling is natural. They should not be pushed away from the truths that their bodies are telling them. In fact, promoting intimacy is going against teenager's wants of finding social status, intimacy, and pleasure, so they will indeed rebel. Teachers need to work with a similar mindset of a teenager, yet find more responsible ways of finding these goals in their teaching.
Teens have emotional instability, and have a desire for finding an absolute. They want to have intimate relationships just like adults do. However, they lack the maturity and proper decision making because of their still developing minds and bodies. Human affection is a primal need. In a time so unstable at the teenage years, a teen wants to have that one absolute in their life. When teachers criticize teens for wanting to find fulfillment of their voids, they rebel because they want to feel loved. They want to have sex. That need is primal. Consequently, instinct takes over.
Teens need to be taught not to hide from their feelings because their instinct and sex drives are too strong for them to hold back. If teens are continued to be taught with abstinence as the goal, it will continue to fail. Yale University researcher Hannah Breckner performed a survey that yielded results that " sexually active virginity pledgers were less likely to use condoms at first sex than non-pledgers" Breckner also noted that "pledgers were less likely to seek and obtain STD-related health care, possibly because of increased stigmatisation or misperception of infection risk among pledgers". http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2005/mar/23youth.htm
Through this survey, it shows that students encouraged through abstinence do not get educated enough about birth control, STIs, and other risks. These children need to be safe and protected through methods, not words. Words will not prevent a pregnancy. Knowledge and the use of preventative measures will.
Teens need to know the facts about sex. A program that will effectively keep teens safer is one that does not tell a teen, no, no, no. A teen would just rebel and commit sexual acts, but unsafely because of the lack of knowledge an abstinence only program gives to its students. Teens are at a time where decision making is not at its highest peak, but if they know how to be safe, and if they are taught to find social status, pleasure, and intimacy in other ways, than we will be speaking in terms that a teen will respect and is more likely to abide to.