According to a national study report done in 1995 by the State Department of Education, every 10 seconds, a teenager becomes
sexually active for the first time, meaning that 7742 teens become
sexually active each day. Of those, 46% used no form of contraception. This
paper shows that the problems of AIDS and other STDs, abortions, and babies born out of wedlock are costly in terms of both human heartache and the strain on America's financial and medical resources. The paper argues that, although preaching sexual abstinence is praiseworthy, it is not realistic in a world that promotes sex so widely through the media.