Sexually active teens at Morton East High School are more likely to participate in unprotected sex rather than protected sex; about half of students (51 percent of those surveyed) may be having unprotected sex.  

In the U.S. we know that this generation of teens doesn’t wait for marriage to come around to have sex. What we don’t know is that every year in the U.S we get about 20 million new sexually transmitted infections. 46 % of those high school students who have engaged in sexual activity have come across being at risk of getting STI’s. When teens say that they use protection when they participate in sexual activity they think that because they use condoms they won’t be at risk of catching and STI or STD, but condoms aren’t 100% safe.  Many teens aren’t aware that they have and STI or STD do to studies at rush university they say that most people who have herpes have no symptoms at all or if they do it’s very mild. In a survey of 120 Morton East students, 62 have had unprotected sex, 47 have used protection, and 11 have not participated in sexual activity. 

“Although condoms aren’t 100 % safe I’m glad that our school does handout condoms to students like us who participate in sexual activity,“ an anonymous senior girl student said.  

Teens who don’t have any don’t have any knowledge or if they don’t know where to go for condoms decide to just have unprotected sex. 

“We have many teens that come into our clinic and they are scared because they claim that they didn’t know where to buy condoms, and they had unprotected sex and their partner had some sort of infection that they were never aware of,” Linda Medical Assistant from PCC clinic, said.  

When teenagers have unprotected sex, they are not only at risk of getting an STI or an STD but also getting their partner pregnant.  

“Students come to me on school day morning panicking asking us if we have a birth control pill because they were participating unprotected sex or because they had run out of condoms, but they didn’t think nothing will happen but since they aren’t 18 we aren’t allowed to give out to them we would need parents’ permission,” School Nurse said.  

When teens go to the nurse asking for plan b pills and aren’t allowed to get them it forces them to tell their parents because they act quickly and want to receive the pill.  

“If you ever come to me telling me that you need plan B pills for someone that you had sex with I’m going to assume you’re asking me for them because you weren’t thinking and didn’t have protected sex to begin with and not only that but you’re too young to have a kid and even more of catching an STI or STD, it would make me upset knowing you aren’t doing the things we talked about,” Cicero mom Leticia Ramirez said.