Abstinence only sex education is a form of sex education which emphasizes abstaining from sex, often to the exclusion of all other types of sexual and reproductive health education, particularly regarding birth control and safe sex. This type of sex education promotes sexual abstinence until marriage and either completely avoids any discussion about the use of contraceptives, or only reveals failure rates associated with such use. Sex education is a broad term used to describe education about human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, and other aspects of human sexual behavior. ... Within the framework of WHOs definition of health[1] as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, reproductive health addresses the reproductive processes, functions and system at all stages of life. ... Birth control is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of a woman becoming pregnant or giving birth. ... Safe sex (also called safer sex or protected sex) is a set of practices that are designed to reduce the risk of infection during sexual intercourse to avoid developing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). ... Sexual abstinence is the practice of voluntarily refraining from some or all aspects of sexual activity. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

The promotion of abstinence only sex education constitutes one of the major efforts by the religious right to suppress sexual activity other than that which ocurrs between the parties to a heterosexual marriage.^{[citation needed]} The term Religious Right is a broad label applied by both scholars and critics to a number of political and religious movements and groups that primarily are active around conservative and right wing social issues. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

Criticism

As abstinence programs teach that abstaining from sex is the only effective or acceptable method of avoiding pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, such programs are criticized for leaving young people uninformed about basic sexual and reproductive health issues, to the extent that they may be at higher risk of unwanted pregnancies (see teenage pregnancy). Some abstinence only education curricula has also been known to downplay the effectiveness of condoms or to exaggerate their failure rates. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) — also known as sexually transmissible diseases, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or (infrequently) venereal diseases (VD) or social disease — are diseases or infections that have a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of sexual contact, vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and/or anal sex. ... A 67 m long condom on the Obelisk of Buenos Aires, Argentina, part of an awareness campaign for the 2005 World AIDS Day A condom is a device, usually made of latex, or more recently polyurethane, that is used during sexual intercourse. ...

See also

• Religious views on birth control
• Sexual norm
• Virginity pledge

Religious adherents vary widely in their views on birth control. ... A sexual norm can be an individual norm or a social norm. ... Virginity pledges (or abstinence pledges) are commitments made by teenagers and young adults to refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage. ...

References

Williams, Mary E. (Ed.). (2006). Sex: opposing viewpoints. Detroit: Greenhaven.