The paper you linked to was not about sex education generally, only one type, so it did not show that sex education is effective on preventing abortions. The paper does show that while state with higher levels of abstinence only sex education had higher levels of teen pregnancies, they did not have lower levels of teen abortions. The states that had sex education that did not mention abstinence had the least abortions, the states that mention abstinence in context of a comprehensive sex education had the most teen abortions, the states that emphasized abstinence had slightly fewer abortions than states that only mentioned it, and states that stressed abstinence had the second lowest rate of teen abortions.
This strengthens my opinion that sex education has no effect on teen pregnancy or abortion rates.
Yes, if Roe is overturned, abortion law will be governed by the states. And several blue states have already enacted legislation that would maintain legal abortions in the event Roe goes away. A few had legalized abortion prior to Roe, at it will remain legal there, too.
This is an issue for women in red states, especially women who can’t leave the state to obtain an abortion. So, mostly for young and poor women in red states.
So to make any argument that sex education has a big effect on abortion rates you have theorize that abortion rates in a woman’s 20’s (59%) or after (32%, doesn’t add to 100 from rounding see link) are greatly affected by what she learned in school as a teenager. And that’s going to be just torturing statistics till they confess what you want to hear, which is what the ‘studies’ on teen abortion probably are to begin with, along with most ‘social science’. If it was really clear that what schools told kids was a major influence in their sexual behavior while still kids…it would be clear, which it’s not. And even it that were clear, unwanted pregnancy of girls is a small % of all unwanted pregnancies of adult women plus girls.
‘Education’ (either in the general sense or the sense of delivering a certain message about a certain topic) like public subsidies is a potentially useful social tool in some cases but it’s very easy to overestimate the potential for either to change social phenomena and patterns with deep and complicated causes.
On the other hand, were I to say “the earth is round” and someone were to say, “source”, the accusation of “sealioning” would seem not entirely unwarranted, no?
Jesus frog. Why don’t you try reading my post. You basically repeated what I said.
Since everyone pretends to do sex education these days, comparing abstinence based education with other types is as close as you’re going to get to comparing sex ed to non-sex ed.
Now, assuming that you went back and read my post, what do you think of my contention that the lack of abortions - despite the higher pregnancy rate - could be due to the increased difficulty of getting them and the increased social pressure against them?
AFAICT this works against the idea that sex education reduces abortions, which is what was alleged. Abstinence education doesn’t reduce abortions - if there is a kind of education that does, what is it?
preach it =) and as to rapists, I really don’t think they are interested in practicing safe sex wither, neither of mine were …
The product I wish I had known about was the menstrual cup … so much money on pads and tampons … sob though in retrospect, I really wish instead of just the tubal ligation, I had thought to try and convince my doc to remove the uterous as well, leaving just the ovaries. Not bleeding out/skipping months/bleeding for months thanks to PCOS would have been HEAVENLY!!! I had one stretch of bleeding that lasted 17 months the Navy OB/GYNs would do nothing about ‘it isn’t uncommon in PCOS’ …:mad: they could have done what my civilian doc had done and at least given me norethindrone and stopped the menses in their tracks! Unfortunately I only managed that for about 4 years before I managed a hysterectomy [thanks ovarian cancer?] Damned Navy wouldn’t even put me on the pill to regulate the menses because I had a freaking tubal ligation and ‘it wasn’t warrented’
Men need to get their damned heads out of reproductive rights unless they are a board certified OB/GYN …
Being on the left, the data comes first for me. As I said, sex education does not seem to decrease the number of abortions - it does decrease the teen pregnancy rate. In fact it looks like it increases the percentage of abortions for those who do get pregnant, since the number of abortions is roughly equal despite a lower pregnancy rate.
All things being equal. But they aren’t. Where I live, getting an abortion is not going to be that big a deal in the sense that a woman won’t have to drive hundreds of miles and get yelled at by her church. If more pregnancies are due to accidents, perhaps that makes abortion more acceptable as opposed to stupidly depending on abstinence. Like I said, making abortions harder to get is going to cut the rate.
But why should the state encourage vasectomies? What public interest would that serve???
I said that if I were a doctor, I would refuse to do a vasectomy on a 26 yo, and if I were a legislator, I would also oppose a law encouraging doctors to do vasectomies on 26 yo, for the exact same reason
At best, sex education reduces the number of abortions and/or the number of teen pregnancies and/or the rate of STD.
At worst, it does none of these things (I find it unlikely, but well…) but inform kids about a pretty important subject (about which the parents most likely to oppose sex ed are also the most likely to poorly inform their children).
Actually at worst it could increase one or more of those things, or have negative non-pregnancy side effects like encouraging people to have sex when it’s too early for them and negative fall out from that.
I’m not saying that’s true, just pointing out how ‘we know our side is right’ type mental laziness can easily creep especially into tired old set piece culture war topics like sex or ‘sexual abstinence’ education.
But to reiterate, see link above, around 10% of abortions in the US are by women under 20 so presumably significantly less than 10% for non-adults (pre 18) and presumably much less than 10% for women/girls of an age where it would be plausible they don’t know sex makes babies without schools telling them. It’s not quite like constantly arguing over abortion in case of rape/incest at order of 1% of cases, but it’s on the way there.
The bulk of abortions are by adult women, mainly in their 20’s. It’s very doubtful IMO middle/HS curricula, let alone ‘liberalizing vasectomy’, has or would have a noticeable impact on that.
I’m following here the implied assumption of the OP, that lowering the overall abortion rate is an important social goal. In fairness somebody could first state they don’t care whatsoever what the overall abortion rate is, but abortions by minors even if a small % are a special case and the only kind they care about, or care highly disproportionately more about.
The Pro Life camp tends, as has been said, to be religious fundamentalists. The Lord commanded Adam and Eve ‘Be fruitful and multiply’. Vasectomies violate that commandment. This proposal is a non starter in that sense. We are dealing, almost overwhelmingly, with folks who are against everything but the rythm method. They want sex only in heterosexual marriage. Everybody else should practice abstinence.
Speaking for myself- I always wanted to be a daddy. The fact that I am not is one of the great disappointments of my life. I am strongly pro choice. But, I would never get a vasectomy because it violates Jewish law. Condoms also violate Jewish law, but to a lesser degree. They aren’t permanent. They are also cheaper and don’t involve sitting on an ice pack for a week.
Oh and since nobody asked- Jewish law is against abortion but does NOT consider the fetus a person. A fetus is only a potential person.
Has sex education ever worked at its best and reduced the number of abortions? If so, can you cite where it did?
Unless this is a hypothetical that says “sex education could or should reduce the number of abortions, but has never done so in fact”. Maybe it sounds like it should reduce abortions, maybe it is intended to reduce abortions. But AFAICT it doesn’t.
