"More than half of Americans have had sexual intercourse and face significant sexual health risks. Each year over one million teenagers become pregnant, one in seven teenagers contract a sexually transmitted disease, and one in five hundred students are infected with HIV." This quote informs us as adults that we need to take some action to protect our children. Children are having sex earlier than ever; teenagers are having babies; and worst of all, people are dying. There needs to be condom availabity in our schools. I know that is touchy situation, but I strongly believe we need to take some kind of action. When I was in school, the schools were using the abstinence-only education. This form of education is great, but we need to widen our selections. There is a study that shows that every twenty-six seconds a teenager in the United States becomes pregnant, and every hour fifty-six babies are born to teenagers. Evidentially, the abstinence-only education is not proven to be effective. These kinds of unwanted situations can be prevented by utilizing condoms or other contraceptives. Being a mother at the age of 15, I have first-hand experience. We need to make condom availabity easier for our children to protect themselves.There was a program in effect at New York City schools where students could get condoms without parental consent. A vote by parents and teachers overturned it. Now students have to have parents sign a consent form so they can obtain a condom at school. This bothers me a great deal; high school students are constantly being told to mature ad make decisions. When they finally do something mature, taking responsibilty and utilizing a condom, the adults make it even harder to do so. Some students who took advantage of the policy are now no longer able to do so because their parents would not sign the consent form. Believe me, those same students are still having sex, now just unprotected.Many parents argue that providing condoms to students will somehow give them permission to go out and have sex, or they might think if they don't give their children condoms they will not have sex. Parents who think like that are being naive. No matter what parents, teachers, or other authority figures say to children about having sex or not having sex, the majority of the teenagers are still going to have sex. I once read a quote that stated, "The school nurse provides band-aids, and kids are not going to cut themselves just because they can get one." That statements says it...
