Condom Availability in High Schools Essay

In 1991 the New York City add-in of Education created a program to make refuges accessible to every(prenominal) gritty school students upon request. The program ca utilize pargonntal disagreement and the school board was interpreted to court. P arnts claimed that making rubber erasers available to students was a health service and could not be fork upd to students. The board argued that the condom plan was not a medical service. They explained it was angiotensin converting enzyme part of a comprehensive raisingal program that did not petition direct parental consent. The school board lost the case. The program may know survived had the case been heard by the New York situate domineering Court Massach single-valued functiontts is the most signifi bottomlandt, it is the highschoolest court to address the issue, and it rejects, the claim that condom availability interferes with parental liberties (Karen Mahler). In 1977 the united States denied a New York State Law prohi biting the dispersal or sale of non-prescription contraceptives to teenageds under the age of 16. The United States Supreme Court seems to bring on support for the condom availability program. With teen pregnancy rates and the estimate of STDs reported in teens on the rise, schools are beginning to realize that the parents are not doing their job when it comes to cozy education.The school system already has classes on conjure upual education these classes are based mainly on human anatomy. Most schools do not teach their students to the highest degree relationships, morals, respect, self-discipline, self-respect, and most importantly contraceptives. Everyday students engage in informal activity, many of them without condoms. This simple act jeopardizes these students futures and possibly their continues. An increasing tot of school systems are starting to combine messages involving abstinence from sexual activity, and expanding availability of contraceptives, especially co ndoms. Schools are now stepping in to further equip their students for behavior. The distribution of condoms in public high schools will lower the rate of pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers. Eighty percent of teen mothers end up in poverty for long periods of time due to the fact that they never undefiled high school.They become financially dependent on programs such as Welfare and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children). Welfare provides money and food stamps for low-income families. WIC provides milk, cheese, eggs, cereals, fruit juices, dried beans or peas, peanut butter and infant formula for all participants. WIC also provides nutritionary education and health care referrals at no cost. Programs such as these facilitate millions of families every year. Considering the fact that the majority of teens will participate in sexual activity, Sex Ed should focus more on methods of contraception and less(prenominal) on abstinence. Giving adolescents more info rmation astir(predicate) sex and making condoms more available are ways to cut the luck of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.The condom is the only type of extradite control that protects against the transmission of STDs when properly used. Experts say the lack of acquaintance on how to use a condom correctly and the lack of pauperism to use a condom every time means that condoms come apart more often. This could result in pregnancy or the contraction of STDs. Teenagers reprocess condoms or they use it with a petroleum-based lubricant which can dissolve the condoms latex. Birth control products are only effective if used properly. Rates of chastisement for condoms are between 2 percent and 14 percent. Inexperienced users make up a larger percentage of failure rates because of improper use. This failure rate is also due to variable use among teenagers. With the proper knowledge and training students can effectively use a condom to protect themselves. Health resourc efulness Centers, or HRCs are centers located in middle and high schools promoting safe sex. HRCs provide reproductive health information, condoms, and general health referrals to students. All students in the participating schools are taught about the importance of abstinence, but they are provided with condoms if they call for to be sexually active.Trained staff members and volunteers, including health professionals, educators, nurses, psychologists and graduate interns provide counseling for students upon request. Students attending the junior high school also have access to condoms however counseling is mandatory for these students forrader they can flummox condoms. Informational brochures can be obtained in the nurses office. Students are also able leveraging condoms from vending machines located in remote places throughout the school. The HRCs have large levels of administrative and staff support for its objectives. Students who used the program by and large viewed the se rvices they received favorably. Expanded condom availability, when accompanied with the proper education and information about safer sex, will decrease the amount of unprotected sexual encounters and the spread of sexually transmitted disease. Making love is not something to bunco around with. When people decide to do it, they make a life and death decision. If they contract an STD they risk their life for death. And if a adult female gets pregnant, the woman is not guaranteed to live through it (although chances are that she will), and the child is not guaranteed to live for many reasons including abortion.Shouldnt steps be taken to educate teenagers about what they are getting into before schools start handing out condoms? This would be a better way to prevent the spread of pregnancies and of STDs and H.I.V. If teenagers do not have sex to begin with the risk of infection goes down because, condoms are not 100% effective. However, it is known that regardless of the consequences or risks, teens will affect in sexual inter feast, it is the teachers job to help educate how to have safer sex. If the students know more about the risks, then they can make an educated decision about sex, and then it will be very likely that they will use a condom if they do decide to have sex. Rather than having one year of Sex Ed in High School like the majority of schools do crossways the nation, students should have Sex Ed classes starting in junior high school.They should learn about pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and H.I.V. There would be a course or a section of a course dedicated to health where students learn about these subjects. Then in high school, students should do a more in-depth study of the consequences of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. This could be done as a part of a biology course or as a research project in an face class. Finally, students should learn about H.I.V. and AIDS, how it affects the lives of those who have it, and what can be done about it. Again, this could be a separate course that is required or a part of another required course. Then, pamphlets about all these things should be do available at the health (or nurses) office and suggested for the students to read before they receive condoms. If this is done, then teenage sex should become much less of a problem than it is now.AbstractOver the past twenty years, the add together of teen, unplanned pregnancies has nearly doubles in size. This is a problem to all people that it affects because it hurts people financially, not to mention all of the unexpected sift that comes along with being pregnant. Making condoms available in High Schools would sure as shooting decrease this number to what it once was and hopefully drastically decrease the number of orphans and teen parents in debt that we have in this country.ReferencesFurstenburg, Frank , Mariarz, Geitz , Teitler, Julien , Weiss, Christopher Does base hit availableness Make a Difference? A n Evaluation of Philadelphias Health Resource Centers Family Planning Perspective stack 29, Issue 3 (May-Jun.,1997), 123-127. Kreiner, Anna Learning to secernate No to Sexual Pressure New York The Rosen Publishing Group Mahler, Karen Condom Availability in the Schools Lessons from the Courtroom Sexuality Volume 4, Article 63 1993-1996 Natale, Jo Anna The Hot New Word is Sex Ed School Volume 5 Article 30, 1994-1996 Sex education Anything goes. Washington Times 1 Nov. 2000 Stewart, Gail B. Teen Parenting. San Diego Lucent Books 2000 Teens Regret Having Sex. Maryland Abstinence Education and Coordination Program. spend 2000