the $130 million dollar plan to promote sexual abstinence for teens is, surprise surprise, a dismal failure.
While this is not news, what pisses me off most is that they are spending all this money for a hopeless program and they are not even teaching birth control!
If the proponents of this ridiculous program could pull their heads out of their collective asses for one moment, perhaps they could see a realistic approach to sex education – anal warts and all, would do a hell of a lot more good than trying to tell teenagers with raging hormone to just say no.
It is inexcusable to spend that much money and not even teach kids what they need to know about basic protection and options for birth control. I can only imagine the chapter devoted to homosexuals with devil horns burning in hell…may the proponents of this stupid abstinence curriculum sit on a big one and twirl.
Gotta love the Godders. 3 million years of human evolution pushing people to reproduce as soon as they’re sexually mature vs. abstinence classes in high school. I know which side I’d put money on.
I think abstinence class sounds like a great place to meet girls that have thought long and hard about putting out. If I was a teen, you couldn’t keep me away with a cattle prod.
What I have never understood about the opposition to birth control info in school sex ed classes is: how can you ignore the importance of teaching knowledge so crucial for students’ futures?
We accept the responsibility to teach them Business Math before they have their own budgets, checkbooks or credit cards. We accept the responsibility to teach them Driver’s Ed before they’re allowed to drive. We accept the responsibility to teach them Home Economics (including such topics as “Family and Career Management” and “Preparation for Parenting”) before they have their own homes, families or careers.
We teach these things because we know that teenagers will need this knowledge someday soon, even if they’re not in a position to use it right now. So even if you’re violently opposed to high-schoolers being sexually active, how can you argue with teaching them things they’ll need to know when they do become sexually active as adults? Since when is school supposed to be only about learning stuff that you’re going to use right away?
Sex is a fundamental human activity that the vast majority of people are going to participate in at some time or other, and it can have more profound and life-changing consequences than anything else in the world. How on earth can anyone defend the notion that vital information about it should be ignored in schools and left for students to pick up on their own, if and however they can? Madness, sheer madness.
This isn’t the first study of abstinence only sex-ed that I’ve seen saying that the programs are ineffective. However, I’ve yet to see a rebuttal to these studies from supporters of abstinence only sex-ed programs. Does anyone have a link? Has the White House spoken up about these studies?
snerk I don’t know HOW to start describing what’s wrong with THAT.
From what I understand of abstinence-only programs, the goal is not to get teenagers to postpone sexual activity until adulthood - it’s to get them to postpone it until marriage, at which time birth control will not be necessary. (I know, I know… but that seems to be the reasoning.)
The Bush regime?
Admit they’ve made a mistake?
Admit that their christian ideology is at odds with reality and what’s best for the nation?
Dude, can I have some of whatever you’re smoking?
Shows what you know. Everyone knows that sex is a drty, sinful act that send you straight to Hell if you even think about thinking about it. No one is to EVER have sex, unless there are a married, heterosexual copule, and only for the purposes of making a baby. That is the only way to never got to Hell for having sex.
Does anyone have a cite for a study on the effectiveness of conventional sex-ed classes? Given the amount of teenage pregnance around, it can’t be all THAT much better than abstinence-only classes…
(I’m not advocating for abstinence-only, I really am curious about the comparison…)
Here’s an article from the Washington Post back in December (registration required, sorry) which may answer some of your questions.
In particular, if you want to see arguments in favour of abstinence-only programs, you can probably turn to the “Medical Institute for Sexual Health”, which produces a lot of material for such programs. Unfortunately, as the article indicates that material is highly inaccurate and includes statements like “HIV can be transmitted by sweat and tears” and “condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse”. So I would not consider the Medical Institute for Sexual Health to be a reputable source.
But that may be the best you’re going to do on the pro-abstinence side; the article states that “Nonpartisan researchers have been unable to document measurable benefits of the abstinence-only model.”
Personally, I find the idea of the government giving taxpayer money to third-party organizations which not only ill-prepare teenagers to deal with their sexuality but LIE to them about as well to be abhorrent. I said as much here, but that thread eventually got bogged down in a variety of hijacks related to whether or not the government should be funding public education at all.
This post by Chotii from an earlier thread gave some good suggestions as to what good abstinence education might entail. I still don’t think abstinence-only is worth a crock of shit, but Chotii’s suggestions would make an excellent addition to any sex-ed class.
