Bush pushing abstinence-only education
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| Fri, 02-13-2004 - 1:33pm |
2/13/2004 8:24 AM
By: Associated Press
WHITE HOUSE -- The Bush administration wants to double spending on school sex-education programs that teach abstinence, with no discussion about birth control or condoms.
The proposal comes despite a lack of evidence that such programs work. There is even specific evidence that they don't work.
An independent study commissioned by the Minnesota health department has found that sexual activity doubled among junior high school students who took part in an abstinence-only program.
And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says declining birth and pregnancy rates among teen-agers during the last decade are attributable to both abstinence and contraception.
A person who helped write the administration's abstinence education program said the Minnesota study is unscientific and says the CDC didn't give enough credit to abstinence.
http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArID=97850&SecID=2

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is what i have to say to that.
For the people who actually abstain, they're fine.
But for the many more people who give in, they are now almost guaranteed to get pregnant or get a disease.
How does that help anyone?
When will Bush ever learn that young people are gonna have sex with or without education
It is better to educate people about their options, and perhaps teach them more about how to handle peer pressure, and also about where they can seek the help they are after, rather than teach abstinence.
The problem that I had with my high school in New Zealand was that they didn't teach sex education early enough (not that it affected me), mainly for the fact that by the time they taught it to us, most of us were of legal age (in New Zealand the legal age for sex is 16), and a number of girls had already had abortions. They were still teaching us about puberty change at the age of 15!!! By that time we'd already had it rammed down our throats for the previous four years!!
While I have pretty strong feelings on the subject, I'll spare you... ;)
I may be in the minority on this opinion, but I don't think 14, 15, 16, 17 year olds should be having sex. They should be focusing on growing into self-reliant adults, focusing on their educations, and their careers.
People may laugh at the concept of abstinence, but there's a lot to recommend it, and I think we ought to be presenting it as a *viable option* to young people.
I completely agree with you that teens shouldn't be having sex. However, I think that they are MORE likely to abstain if they are fully informed. Teaching them "don't have sex" doesn't tend to be effective. Teach them about their bodies, about their reproductive systems, how things work (to the exent that we know), what the consequences of their actions could be..... make sure they know that they have the right to decide what to do with their own body, and be comfortable with that body, and I think more of them will wait.
I can think of two people that I know: one was HIGHLY educated, by her parents, on the workings of her body, sex, birth control. She was SCARED to have sex as a teen, because she didn't want to deal with the possible side effects. The other comes from a very religious family, "if you teach kids about sex you're encouraging them to have it" types. Hmmm..... more than 1/2 of the females (including her mother) in her immediate family were pregnant before marriage (she wasn't, but she wasn't a virgin either).
I realize that neither example is quite talking about teaching abstinence, but one was taught about her body, without being told she SHOULDN'T have sex (but that is was an option) and she waited. The family that was taught no sex ed still had sex & didn't know how to protect themselves.
I do think abstinence is a viable option, but it isn't the ONLY option, so people need to be educated about all kinds of birth control.
Responding also to Josie's earlier remarks - I TOTALLY agree that this education should come from parents. Unfortunately, many parents don't teach much (My Mom didn't tell me I would get a period), so there does need to be other means of educatng people available.
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