Condom Availability in High Schools Essay

In 1991 the New York City Board of Education created a program to make condoms accessible to all high school students upon request. The program ca utilise agnatic disagreement and the school board was taken to court. P bents needed that making condoms available to students was a health service and could not be provided to students. The board argued that the condom plan was not a medical service. They explained it was one part of a comprehensive educational program that did not require direct p arntal consent. The school board muddled the case. The program may have survived had the case been heard by the New York State Supreme Court Massachusetts is the most signifi trampt, it is the highest court to address the issue, and it rejects, the claim that condom availability interferes with p bental liberties (K ben Mahler). In 1977 the linked States denied a New York State Law prohibiting the distribution or sale of non-prescription contraceptives to teens under the age of 16. The Unit ed States Supreme Court seems to have support for the condom availability program. With teen pregnancy rates and the follow 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 knowledgeable education.The school system already has classes on sexual education these classes are based primarily on human anatomy. Most schools do not teach their students about relationships, morals, respect, self-discipline, self-respect, and most importantly contraceptives. Everyday students engage in sexual activity, umteen of them without condoms. This primary act jeopardizes these students futures and possibly their lives. An increasing amount of school systems are starting to combine messages involving abstinence from sexual activity, and expanding availability of contraceptives, especially condoms. Schools are now stepping in to further equip their students for animation. The distribution of condoms in public high sch ools will lower the rate of pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers. Eighty part of teen mothers last up in poverty for long periods of time due to the fact that they never finished 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 nutritional education and health care referrals at no cost. Programs such as these help millions of families each year. Considering the fact that the majority of teens will participate in sexual activity, elicit Ed should focus to a greater extent on methods of contraception and less on abstinence. Giving adolescents more information about sex and making condoms more available are modes to cut the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.The c ondom is the only type of birth control that protects against the transmission of STDs when properly used. Experts say the lack of knowledge on how to use a condom correctly and the lack of motivation to use a condom every time means that condoms fail more often. This could result in pregnancy or the contraction of STDs. Teenagers reuse 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 failure 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 dissonant use among teenagers. With the proper knowledge and training students can effectively use a condom to protect themselves. Health Resource Centers, or HRCs are centers located in middle and high schools promoting safe sex. HRCs provide reproductive health information, condoms, and general health referral s to students. All students in the participating schools are taught about the importance of abstinence, but they are provided with condoms if they choose to be sexually active.Trained staff members and volunteers, including health professionals, educators, lactates, psychologists and graduate interns provide counseling for students upon request. Students attending the lower-ranking high school also have access to condoms however counseling is mandatory for these students before they can receive condoms. Informational brochures can be obtained in the nurses office. Students are also able purchase 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 generally viewed the services they received favorably. Expanded condom availability, when accompanied with the proper education and information about safer sex, will decrease the amount of unshielded sexual encounters and the spread of sexually transmitted disease. Making love is not something to play 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 woman 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 cognise that regardless of the consequences or risks, teens will partake in sexual inter course, 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 educa ted 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 across 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 English 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 distract course that is required or a part of another required course. Then, pamphlets about all these things should be made 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 previous(prenominal) twenty years, the number 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 unhoped stress that comes along with being pregnant. Making condoms available in High Schools would surely 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 Condom Availability Make a Difference? An Evaluation of Philadelphias Health Resource Centers Family be after Perspective Volume 29, Issue 3 (May-Jun.,1997), 123-127. Kreiner, Anna Learning to Say 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. Summer 2000