On April 20, 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Program—a grant program created by the Obama administration in 2010 to reduce teen pregnancy rates in the United States—will provide funding only to organizations promoting abstinence-only approaches.1 Until this point, the TPP Program funded evidence-based prevention initiatives—including education on contraception, dating violence, and the value of healthy relationships.2 It likely contributed to a substantial decrease in teen pregnancy rates from 2007 until 2015, with a record decrease of 9 percent between 2013 and 2014.3

While the American public is demanding ways to tackle teen pregnancy and other issues such as unhealthy relationships,4 the federal government is reducing access to critical intervention tools—an important one being comprehensive sex education. Sex education across the country is being underutilized and even misused. Adolescents receive information about sex and sexuality from a multitude of sources, including the media, school, religious organizations, family, and peers. And as the sources of sex education become even more diverse and are presented in ways that may be inconsistent, confusing, or misleading, educators must leverage these sources and align messaging to help young people determine how best to engage in positive, healthy relationships.

State sex education standards in public schools vary widely. According to a study from the National Institutes of Health, only about half of adolescents receive school instruction about contraception before they first have sex.5 Only 20 states require information on condoms or contraception, and only 20 states and the District of Columbia require sex and/or HIV education to be medically, factually, and technically accurate.6 Meanwhile, 27 states require lessons that stress abstinence, and 18 states require instruction that teaches students to engage in sexual activity only within marriage.7