There is no clear answer to what method should be used in favor of another. Some adults insist that teens are going to have sex anyway, so why not teach them how to protect themselves?

Others have taken a more moral standing on the issue, insisting that abstinence until marriage is the only way to battle the growing problem, and passing out contraceptives is like handing out filters after telling you not to smoke.

So what programs should we implement in schools to help prevent the current situation in the future? What is seen as an appropriate program for sex education varies, and your opinion greatly depends on how you were raised, whether religion is a factor, whether it’s a private or public school that’s using the program and more. The abstinence-only programs, backed by many social conservatives who oppose the teaching of contraception methods to teenagers in U.S. schools, have received about $1.3 billion in federal funds since the late 1990s, according to a Reuters news article. It also was given a huge boost by the George W. Bush administration.

But new data has made things complicated. Long bashed for being ineffective, abstinence-only programs now have been proven to delay sex for at least two years. In a new study published in the February 2010 issue of “Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine,” 662 sixth- and seventh-graders from four Philadelphia-area public schools were split into five education programs, including an abstinence-only program and a health-only program that did not discuss sex education. When researchers compared the abstinence-only program to the health-only program at the end of two years, they found only about one-third of the students in the abstinence-only class had sex compared with almost half of the health-only students that had sex.

Abstinence-only supporters might rejoice at this news, but they should wait to celebrate. The abstinence-only programs popular among conservatives — those that take an unwavering stand on no sex before marriage — are nothing like the program that was tested in the new study. The abstinence-only class used in the study was significantly longer and did not take a moral stand on sex. The class was eight hours, included follow-up sessions and did not tell students to wait until they were married. The instructors instead enlisted the students to come up with their own lists of positive goals and dreams that could be affected by the consequences of sex. Instructors also were not allowed to unfairly bash the use or effectiveness of condoms.

Perhaps it’s time to abandon the mantra of simply telling people not to have sex, and instead embrace a safer approach. Abstinence-only programs do not work 100 percent of the time, and neither do the safe-sex approaches in preventing teen sex and pregnancies. It’s time to address the beliefs of the past and change them or reaffirm them.

Regardless of your moral standings, the sex education taught in schools should cover both abstinence-only and safe-sex approaches. Instead of saying “no sex until marriage,” and then giving no information on how to protect yourself if you do, schools should use the abstinence-only method given in the study above, combined with safe-sex information. They should encourage students to wait to have sex, having them come up with goals and dreams that sex possibly could derail. And at the same time, schools must provide them with information on how to protect themselves should they decide to have sex. The strengths of these methods can work together to combat the rising teen pregnancy rate, combining the best and most helpful information to apply in schools.

If the programs implemented now will affect the future of unplanned teen pregnancies and sex, it’s clear a comprehensive approach is needed soon, whether or not both sides agree.

Ellen Mitchell is a State News intern. Reach her at mitch522@msu.edu.