President Obama’s announcement of the 2017 budget has thrown people for a loop with its liberal cuts and additions. People are starting to realize that, in his last few months as president, liberal changes are on their way. Whether these changes will be quickly undone by a Republican president in the next year or furthered by another Democrat is unclear in this mess of a presidential race that we’ve been seeing thus far. But one of these changes that could potentially have a huge impact on our education system, at least from a health standpoint, is a $10 million dollar cut to grants for abstinence-only sex education. What does this mean for our country? We may finally be able to start educating all our teens nationwide about what it means to have safe sex.

What’s the current state of sex ed in America? Well, for starters, it depends on where you look. One of the biggest problems with our current system is the fact that individual states pick and choose their own curriculums, which leads to discrepancies in what kids are learning. Some states even let counties decide their policies, meaning kids in one school district may be learning all about safe sex while kids only a few miles away are learning exclusively about abstinence. If you have twenty minutes to kill, I highly suggest this John Oliver video on sex education and why it’s so important.

Oliver provides an important–albeit, comedic–analysis of what sex-ed looks like in our country today. In some states, teachers aren’t allowed to show condoms to their classrooms. In others, teachers are still showing videos that shame teens for being sexually active or are blatantly sexist in the way they explain consent. Oliver highlights the ridiculousness of states who try to force abstinence on teenagers and also points out just how polarized the differences in sex education can be from state to state.

The idea behind a lot of these abstinence-only curriculums is the concept that introducing kids to sex will increase the amount of teens having sex at a young age. The abstinence programs are thought to keep kids abstinent, but, in reality, they frequently just lead to unsafe sex because kids don’t know anything about protection against pregnancy and STDs. There are staggering statistics to back up the fact that, in states where there are abstinence-only programs, there are higher rates of teen pregnancy. One of the only states to still have an abstinence-only sex-ed policy (that is, if the schools decide to teach about sex at all, since they are not required to) is Mississippi, which, coincidentally, also has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the country. New Hampshire, on the other hand, provides students with comprehensive sex education, which teaches about contraceptives, safe sex, and abstinence. Its teenage pregnancy rates are some of the lowest in the nation.

How are people responding to Obama’s cuts? Some people are thrilled with the cuts. We will be saving millions of dollars a year, and ending up with more educated young people–what’s not to love?

Good news of today: Obama is removing ALL funding for abstinence-only education for his 2017 budget!

— ♡ little elf ♡ (@cherrycutie) February 17, 2016

Please hold my wand while I do the jumpy-clap dance. https://t.co/DLtygyMZ6t Abstinence-only is garbage. Goooodbye.

— Lyndsay Kirkham (@Lyndsay_Kirkham) February 17, 2016

Others are not so happy. To those people, I say: look at the statistics. Not teaching your kids about sex isn’t going to keep them from having it, it’s just going to keep them from being safe when they inevitably do. Some people have ironically tweeted angrily about the policy, to show just how ridiculous some of the anti-comprehensive sex-ed opinions really are.

Obama just eliminated federal funding for abstinence-only education so when my son gets pregnant he’ll be hearing from me.

— Alex Halpern (@HalpernAlex) February 17, 2016

Also in Obama’s proposed budget, along the same vein, is money for expanded access to HIV treatment and prevention for Americans as well as increased benefits under Medicare for pregnant women. Obama is really hitting a home run with the expansion of these programs and, hopefully, it will lead to a healthier and more informed American public. But, until these states start changing their policies on educating young adults about sex, I guess we’ll just stick to the golden rule about sex that we learned from “Mean Girls” and our abstinence-only fifth grade teachers.

Alexandra Simone

Alex Simone is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street and a student at The George Washington University, studying Political Science. She is passionate about law and government, but also enjoys the finer things in life like watching crime dramas and enjoying a nice DC brunch. Contact Alex at ASimone@LawStreetmedia.com

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The state of sex education in the United States is put simply, a complicated mess. It’s one of the subjects in which our essential decentralization of public education from state to state is most apparent. Some states teach comprehensive sex education, others teach abstinence only. And that’s just the public schools. Private schools can pretty much teach whatever they want. All of this means that we are sending young people into the world with wildly different expectations, understandings, and questions about sexual and reproductive health. Luckily, some students in the Clark County School District in Nevada are now standing up for themselves and demanding real sex education.

This spring, the Huffington Post put together a number of truly terrifying maps to show the disparity of sex education across the country; this is the one I found the most disturbing:

That’s right, all those states in red don’t necessarily have to provide medically accurate information about sex to their students. Some of the greatest misinformed hits from sex ed classes around the country, courtesy of a Congressional report, include:

• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.
• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.
• Women who have an abortion are more prone to suicide.
• Ten percent of women who have an abortion become sterile.

These “facts” are not only patently false, but go straight to spreading fear and misinformation. There’s really no regulation to insist that that students get appropriate or accurate information when it comes to sex, which has led to terrifying gaps in knowledge among young people.

For example, a 2009 study shows that nearly half of sexually active young people do not use protection regularly. Laura Lindberg, of the Guttmacher Institute, a research institution, explains that this statistic probably stems from abstinence only programs that emphasize the problems with contraception in an attempt to stop young people from having sex altogether. Lindberg says:

Abstinence-only curriculums have gone explicitly out of their way to teach misconceptions about contraception. This generation of 20-somethings have missed many opportunities to get medically accurate and correct information

Because many states aren’t required to provide that accurate information, myths are rampant, and people actually make more unsafe choices.

Contrast that with how students fare in states that teach comprehensive sex education, including the real facts about contraception. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released a report detailing how the teen pregnancy rate is much lower in those states.

Even with all of that information, the sex education we provide to students continues to be extremely contentious. But now, some students are starting to take matters into their own hands. Or rather, their own voices. Students in Clark County School District in Las Vegas are protesting for a comprehensive sex education curriculum. They are pushing for real, accurate information on topics including sexual assault, masturbation, and other topics that both parents and school districts have deemed inappropriate. But junior Caitlyn Caruso, one of the leaders of the protest, pointed out the clear need for such discussions in the classroom. A victim of sexual assault, she relayed her experience with sex education in school:

I didn’t have words to name what had happened to me in the past and the experiences I had with sexual assault… I wasn’t provided with that terminology in my sexual health education classes here in Nevada. It took me years before I could access that information and could name what happened to me.

She continued:

When I walked into my first sex education class, I was confronted by the immediate message ‘Don’t have sex until you get married’ and ‘If you have sex before get married, you’re not pure anymore,’ I felt ostracized and alienated and impure. I felt dirty, and like I didn’t belong there, and like I didn’t really belong anywhere.

I understand the argument that we need to protect our young people from information that is too mature for them. But it’s unrealistic in this day and age, when sex is all over the media, to expect that teens are completely in the dark. It’s better to provide accurate information than none at all, or worse, inaccurate information. I applaud the Las Vegas students who are taking a stand.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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