Abstinence Only Failure; Support REAL Act

[sandnsea]

Another right wing failure. Hopefully by the time Bush is out of office, all these half-baked economic and social reforms will have been shown to be the shams they always were. Abstinence-only is the latest Republican fiasco. For a bunch of gun fanatics, you’d think the expression “shot-gun wedding” would have came to mind when they went off on this abstinence tangent. After $1.4 billion dollars and who knows how many unwanted pregnancies and STD’s, a recent Mathematica Policy Research Inc. report showed that students who participated in an abstinence-until-marriage program were just as likely to have sex as those who did not.

Current funding for abstinence programs is likely to end on June 30, according to Rep. John Dingell who has called it a “colossal failure”. This shouldn’t mean that we throw up our hands and accept these outcomes as inevitable. Teens acquire four million STD’s each year and have 800,000 pregnancies. While the teen pregnancy rate has declined since 1995, it is “primarily the result of increased use of contraceptives.” It is imperative that we move quickly to replace abstinence programs with effective sex education in the next school year.

125 organizations; including medical, civil rights, faith-based, family planning, educational, and public health; support “science-based, medically accurate, and age appropriate public health information about both abstinence and contraception”. This program is called the REAL Act, Responsible Education About Life, and has been introduced Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Christopher Shays (R-CT). There is currently no funding for comprehensive sex education, which is the primary objective of the REAL Act.

The Act also defines the criteria to receive funding. Programs would need to be medically accurate including information about benefits and side effects of contraception, health benefits of condoms to reduce STD’s, including HIV; teach abstinence is the only certain way to avoid pregnancy or STD’s; teach skills to avoid verbal, physical and sexual advances; teach that alcohol and drug use inhibits responsible decisions-making; and encourage family communication about sexuality and choices.

Check and see if your Congressman is a co-sponsor of HR 1653, or if your Senator is a co-sponsor of S 972. If they need some encouragement, send them a letter today.

Links:
http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/

[bliss_eternal]

1. Thank you!

:applause:

Recommending!

[K8-EEE]

2. Can't wait til we get to abstain from BushCo and their idiocy!!

God, can they do ANYTHING that's doesn't make more problems than it fixes? People will look back on the BushCo era as the US dark ages. I can't WAIT to be looking BACK on it!!

[bjorkfan]

3. Some communities where abstinence generally works

I've noticed that among certain subgroups where abstinence is stressed, they do seem to be successful at preventing teen sexual activity: The Amish, Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Bahá'ís, and there may be some others I haven't mentioned. What are some common denominators of these groups?

*They are only concered with the behavior of their own group (Muslims and Bahá'ís may be different in this regard). They don't care if the teens in other communities mate like rabbits.

*Related to my first point, they do not attempt to proseltyze outsiders (again, Muslims and Bahá'ís are the exception). They have no compulsion to infiltrate public schools or other institutions in order to "save souls." They can live in their own neighborhoods, run their own schools, homeschool, have their own community institutions, etc. They are able to be insulated from mainstream society, thus their children have few opportunities to have sex in the first place.

[Scout]

4. "Bahá'ís are the exception"

i think this is incorrect. i have friends and family who are/were of the Baha'i faith, and i don't remember ever reading or hearing about trying to recruit or save souls.

as far as the amish, i think they have had increasing rates of sexual abuse committed by teen boys within the community. no link for this tho' i know i've read it somewhere.

[WildClarySage]

5. They also have in common

a reputation for being less than supportive of women's rights.