Although teenage pregnancy rates are declining in the United States, American teenagers have much higher rates of pregnancy, birth, abortion and STDs compared with teenagers in most other developed countries. This slide set addresses why U.S. adolescents fare worse than their peers in other countries, the role of sex education in helping teenagers make healthy and responsible decisions about sex, the current status of sex education in the United States and the policy debate over education programs that exclusively promote abstinence and those that provide more comprehensive messages.