For the Norplant for Consenting Teens policy to succeed, it needs to develop
the sexual education programs in the United States. There are two faults
with this. First, the need for sexual education programs hides many of
the costs of the Norplant for Consenting Teens policy by shifting them
to the education programs. Thus the savings the Norplant for Consenting
Teens program would generate would not necessarily be as great as it first
appears.
The second fault with the Norplant for Consenting Teens policy requiring
better sexual education is more insidious. Since parents place a prodigious
amount of pressure on schools to avoid or limit sexual education, sex
has become a taboo topic among public schools. If the general attitudes
in the United States changed, schools would be more likely to implement
a sexual education curriculum. Consequently, since teenage pregnancy rates
go down proportionately with a country’s openness to talk about
sex related issues, the teenage pregnancy rate will already be on the
decline as the sexual education courses increase. The increase of sexual
education programs will also decrease the number of teenage pregnancies.
Therefore, once Norplant for Consenting Teens is established, the sexual
education and the greater openness in society may have already dropped
the teenage pregnancy rate to an acceptable level. Ironically, one of
the key successes to Sweden’s low teenage pregnancy rate is not
necessarily their sexual education programs, but that the society does
not try to deter teenagers from sexual behavior and that the citizens
are relatively open to discuss sexual topics.
Since we do not live in a perfect world, the likelihood of increasing
the access, frequency, and quality of sexual education in the United States
in the immediate future is very low. A Norplant for Consenting Teens program
could do some good in family planning clinics that counsel teenagers.
The program would be more effective than current programs to reduce teenage
pregnancy. However, in order for the program to succeed, it needs to increase
its accessibility for teenagers. This requires comprehensive sexual education
programs in public schools, for offering Norplant as an option without
providing sex education would limit teenagers’ knowledge of the
contraception and of its availability. This has deterred the usage of
the contraceptive in the past. Ironically, once the environment in this
country allows for the education required for the Norplant for Consenting
Teens program to succeed, teenage pregnancies will probably not be the
dire issue that it is today.
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