By design, abstinence programs restrict information about condoms and contraception - information that may be critical to protecting the health of young people and to preventing unplanned pregnancy, HIV infection, and infection with other sexually transmitted organisms. They ignore the health needs of sexually active youth and youth who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning for counseling, health care services, and risk reduction education. Withholding lifesaving information from young people is contrary to the standards of medical ethics and to many international human rights conventions.
You can find the whole letter here. http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/... The letter also contains many citations to studies, so it is a good summary to use in debates.
By the way, did you know that
almost all Americans initiate sexual intercourse before marriage. In fact by age 44, virtually everyone has experienced sexual intercourse but only 3% have remained abstinent until marriage.
I wonder how some of our local legislators would answer that question.
It's not just the progressives on Raising Kaine who believe this.
We would note that all of the mainstream organizations of health professionals that focus on the health of young people have strongly criticized federal support for current abstinence programs. These include the American Public Health Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine.
And what about our former Surgeon General?
The recent Congressional testimony of former Surgeon General Richard Carmona underscores these critiques from mainstream health organizations. Dr. Carmona's testimony confirms the political motivations behind abstinence funding and the failure to address issues of efficacy and scientific accuracy. He suggested that ideology and theology have taken priority over women's health in the current administration. Dr. Carmona reported that the Bush administration "did not want to hear the science but wanted to, if you will, 'preach abstinence,' which I felt was scientifically incorrect."
Even the conservative Citizens Against Government Waste thinks this is a waste of money. In one of their most recent press releases, about a searchable version of earmarks to find the pork, this was a lead item:
"CAGW provides taxpayers with the information that Congress wants to keep under wraps: a convenient, searchable database of earmarked spending," said CAGW President Tom Schatz. "With our more transparent format, pork gems such as $882,025 for 25 "abstinence education" programs in the state of Pennsylvania . . .http://www.cagw.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=11118
BTW, that pathetic piece of pork was brought to you by Arlen Specter.
Only in reflection, after he found God, could he preach a policy against all common sense, against all psychological and psychiatric literature, and against the wishes of our bodies. His reasoning, that because there is Virgin Airways, Virgin Records, virgin forests, and Extra Virgin olive oil, there should also be virgin people, even of adult age if they are unmarried, is a travesty of intelligent thought.
As for the arguments against teaching the use of condoms, liberal sex, etc., because such teaching would promote more loose sex, this is about as inane as the argument against handing out safe needles to those already addicted to drugs, or saying that our children should not eat in order to prevent obesity. But moderation is not an issue with this president, who finds it reasonable to flush away embryos when they are no longer needed but refuses to allow those discarded embryos to be used for research to potentially save millions of lives, this on the grounds that such experimentation is akin to murder. It seems like too much Bud can addle the brain.
The last argument against our Decider and his string-pullers of the so-called Religious Right is this: Young men and women should follow their instincts and have the sex they feel comfortable with as long as it's not dangerous--condom use, partners you know, not total strange pick-ups, no smoking before or afterwards. All should remember this one statistic, left unfinished by the above commentator: While it's true that nearly all people have had sex by age 44 and only 3% have remained abstinent until marriage, the time for abstinence if AFTER marriage! Unstated is the scientific fact that after 11 years of marriage 76.3% of married couples have reverted to near-abstinence (ask your friends if you don't believe this). So, the moral is, of course, get it while you can, kiddies, after you are married may be too late..
There's Rudy -- here's a new "ad" on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
And then there's Larry Craig, who, it appears, has been a very popular prom date after marriage. (all new -- from the Idaho Statesman.) http://www.idahostatesman.com/...
In a troubling reversal, the nation's teen birth rate rose for the first time in 15 years, surprising government health officials and reviving the bitter debate about abstinence-only sex education.The birth rate had been dropping since its peak in 1991, although the decline had slowed in recent years. On Wednesday, government statisticians said it rose 3 percent from 2005 to 2006.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Having done a fair amount of working with statisticians (as a lawyer trying to understand what our numbers crunchers were doing) it is hard to say what's going on here. But family planning groups have been saying that comprehensive sex ed has been declining during the Bush years. And teen pregnancy rates were declining prior to the beginning of abstinence only funding. http://www.advocatesforyouth.o...