Teenage pregnancy and education
Fraatz, D.B.
Ohio State Medical Journal 77(10): 578
1981
ISSN/ISBN: 0030-1124 PMID: 7290554 Document Number: 386741
The ever increasing number of unwanted teenage pregnancies and venereal disease are usually attributed to lack of sex education. Early in the 1950s sex education became fashionable and subsidized by federal and state funds; there are today a wide variety of human sexuality courses in schools and colleges. Yet, it seems that sex education has made no difference, and, contrary to what was hoped, has not decreased the number of unplanned pregnancies among adolescents. According to the author the causes for relaxed sexual behavior are to be found not in lack of sexual education, but in the new morality, or lack of it, brought about by the new philosophy of life in the 1960s and 1970s, which preached against imposing moral standards on young people, and encouraged the acceptance of all aspects of irresponsible sexuality.