We must provide our young people with medically accurate, age-appropriate information about abstinence AND about protecting themselves from pregnancy and disease. Values should be taught at home, but facts should be taught at school.

Medically Accurate, Comprehensive Sexuality Education Works  

Young people who have the facts are
         better equipped to make responsible decisions about their own sexual behavior. We want to give every teen this option. 

Despite the objections of critics, research has demonstrated that comprehensive heath and sexual
         education programs that enumerate both the benefits of abstinence and accurate information about safe and health sexual practices
         is the only effective method of achieving the goals abstinence-only programs purport to seek.

  Behavioral outcomes of comprehensive programs demonstrated by research include delaying initiation
         of sex, reducing the frequency, number of partners and incidence of unprotected sex, and increasing contraceptive use among
         sexually active participants.  

Despite fears that these programs would "encourage"
         sexual activity amongst teens, research has demonstrated unequivocally that they do not increase the rates or reduce the age
         of sexual initiation. Major medical organizations that support sex education include: American Medical Association, American
         Academy of Pediatrics, American Nurses Association, American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, American Psychological
         Association, American Public Health Association, National Institutes of Health, and the Institute of Medicine. 

• The vast majority of South Carolina adults (over 90%) feel that schools
           should include information about sexually transmitted diseases, abstinence, and sexual abuse/rape as part of a school-based
           comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education program. 

• In addition, more than 80% of the South Carolina
           public feels that teachers should include the topics of parenting responsibilities, physical changes associated with puberty
           and adolescence, reproductive anatomy, contraception, and pregnancy and childbirth in their sex education lesson plans.