Issues of sexual health education in Mississippi

In Mississippi, educators and public health officials are conducting various different practices to curtail the state's problematic teen sexuality issues. According to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, the state leads the nation in teen pregnancies per capita, and has considerably high rates of sexually transmitted disease (STD) infection throughout this age demographic.

This issue has been serious since the March passage of a bill through the state legislature making it mandatory to solely provide abstinence-only or abstinence-plus sexual education.

The former method posits abstinence as the only socially acceptable and healthy option. The latter stresses abstinence but provides information regarding other options regarding teen sexuality, namely contraceptive methods and STD prevention.

A total of 17 or more schools are employing a prominent abstinence-only program. However, a review by the U.S. Sexuality Information and Education Council judged it to be partially misleading. Anne Norwood, director of several teen-oriented health clinics in the Jackson area, states that similar programs often fail.

"By the 12th grade, 61.6 percent of students in the U.S. have had intercourse, and it's probably higher in Mississippi," Norwood told the news source.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that sex conducted with a single uninfected partner in a long-term relationship is as reliable a method of STD prevention as abstinence.