It's more than just beating teen pregnancy: Incentivizing comprehensive sex education programs in the United States.

Currently in the United States, many states provide abstinence only education to students, if sexual education is mandatory at all. This is largely because of the 2017 policy that redirected funding through grants from comprehensive sexual education to abstinence only education. This Note proposes that the current administration redirect the money back to comprehensive sexual education policies that were productive during the early 2010s. The federal government should also provide a level‐based curriculum to states to ease the implementation of comprehensive sexual education in schools. Key Points for the Family Court Community: In 2010, the United States federal government created the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program which, for the first time, provided federal funding to states and programs that used comprehensive sexual education.In its first 5 years (2010–2015), the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program provided comprehensive sexual education to over 500,000 children and teens, from the ages of 10–19 years old.In 2018, the federal government used the funding provided for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program to promote and fund abstinence only education.Despite federal court orders mandating that funding still be provided to grantees of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program from 2015, the Department of Health and Human Services refused to honor the funding promised.Comprehensive sexual education has been proven over the years to be the better method of preventing teen pregnancy, decreasing domestic violence, promoting healthy relationships, and overall preparing teens for adult relationships and life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]