U.S. Campaign to Promote Abstinence Begins »
Posted by: Beau7890 3 months ago129 Comments Report this Story
Proponents of sex education programs that focus on encouraging abstinence are launching a nationwide campaign aimed at enlisting 1 million parents to support the controversial approach.
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quackpot3 months ago
Having already spent $1.5 billion in tax-dollars on abstinence only programs that have been repeatedly shown to be ineffective has been a mistake.
For this fringe group to ask for even more tax payer money to fund these ineffective programs is ridiculous.
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johnnyt3 months ago
if we quit funding ineffective government programs there wouldnt be much left. welfare and medicare would tossed to the side. can you actually show me a government programs that works well?
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newbie04203 months ago
The only reason it gets attcked by certain people is that they hate religion and it's mostly a religous based belief.
Like you said, there wouldn't be much left if we shut down every ineffective government program.
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memestryker3 months ago
I think many government programs have worked well--for a while. Mainly because they were put in place to solve a particular problem, and so the low-hanging fruit gets taken care of before trouble eventually sets in. The problems are many, but include 1) no sunset dates, and they are renewed in the budget due to political favor, 2) all systems eventually become corrupt. They begin clean, but they are bastardized over time as people learn workarounds or use them for personal and political gain, 3) we treat problems as if they can be solved, when in fact they are only part of an ongoing, evolving process, so the fix never keeps up with the form, 4) organizations are like people, and seek to survive at all costs--even after they are obsolete.
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joeblowe3 months ago
Medicare - oddly. Overhead for Medicare is significantly LESS than for private health insurance. Which I didn't even believe the first couple of times I heard it.
Social Security - to a certain extent. I beats the hell out of A) Nothing and B) a pension plan that has been stolen by a failing company.
The food stamp program/WIC actually do some good.
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david_nwpa3 months ago
One government program that works well? How about the US Coast Guard? This is one program unlike many others, which has been documented repeatedly in various districts and across various socioeconomic strata to be ineffective and counterproductive.
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mesodude3 months ago
FEMA worked quite well before Bush destroyed it. Now it's the most dysfunctional agency in the federal government. Much of the current administration's government failures have been caused or hastened by sabotage (FEMA, Justice,Education, IRS, Energy, Agriculture,FDA,FTC,FCC) to name some. Other examples of failure (like the FBI having wiretapping cut off for failing to pay their phone bills, for instance) are just plain sad and inexcusable. It's fun to rag on government (just don't *dare* criticize Bush) but many of the critics of government are invested in its failure.
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TheRealizer3 months ago
We would be several hundred Billion dollars and several thousand lives better off, We would not be funding a growth industry of incarcaration for non violent offenders.
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CaptainLucid3 months ago
"Connecting results with spending is a liberal propaganda ploy"
Do you mean to say that we should figure out if a program is working before we decide to fund it more? We need more of that not less. If we applied that to the drug war we would have hundreds of thousands of people who could join the workforce instead of spending time in jail at great taxpayer expense. The war on drugs has not produced results as far as stopping drug use. The war on drugs supports terrorism. The use of drugs does not. If drugs were legal the price would drop significantly and that would mean less money for the opium growers in Afghanistan.
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ranchhandComment removed: User banned.
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Will13133 months ago
back at you.. but I've never caused ...
the Silverado Savings and Loan scandal.. Neil Bush
Broward Savings & Loan default.. Jeb Bush
Left a state in dire financial need.. Florida .. Jeb Bush
War with Iraq... G W Bush.. daddy did too.. but can't blame Barbara....
The rape and plunder of the American treasury.. G W Bush
The DEATHS AND WOUNDING OF THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS AND IRAQIS... G W Bush...
I think it would be safe to say that my mother's womb was WAAAAAAAAAAAY less of a threat to all of America and the world in general than Barbara Bush's .....
thanks for playing.....
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Global_Warmer3 months ago
They did. He was an abortion...oh wait, I meant an abomination; sorry, my bad.
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Charlson3 months ago
Religion does not merit government funding and neither does teaching religious practices. If your religious organizations want funding then YOU should be taxed, just like any other business. Government and religion shouldn't mixed, it can have disasterous consequences.
Don't know what going on, this is misplaced on this thread.
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memestryker3 months ago
Prohibition doesn't work, it creates a black market for mafias/cartels to fill. If prohibition really worked, there wouldn't be any murder, robbery, or child molestation. Countries have failed whenever they've tried to ban:
alcohol
drugs
guns
abortion
sex
It just goes underground. Better to keep it in the public eye so at least education can be used to manage it better.
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Poulenc3 months ago
American puritanism is a tough beast to slay.
The issue isn't abstinence--why should those just discovering sexual pleasure be compelled to postpone it?--but ensuring that unwanted pregnancy or disease be prevented.
Put bucks into that, not into morbid, life-denying attempts to make sexual need conform to obsolete dictates.
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Beau78903 months ago
Of course, those in favor of abstinence-focused sex education would say abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.
Unfortunately, without education about how to avoid pregnancy or STDs just in case one of those teens falls off thte abstinance wagon (which happens much more often than not), they'll be at risk.
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newbie04203 months ago
I think it's obvious abstinence is the best way to avoid those things but it's probably the least practical.
You'd be surprised how many people "waited" until at least after high school due to some of the abstinence programs along with some of the things taught about STD's.
Being able to catch something that can kill you just by having sex was enough to make me at least jimmy up and sometimes even pass.
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mesodude3 months ago
"Unfortunately, without education about how to avoid pregnancy or STDs just in case one of those teens falls off thte abstinance wagon (which happens much more often than not), they'll be at risk."
--Why should we teach our kids how to protect themselves when we can control them by making them fearful and keeping them ignorant?
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PainGoddess3 months ago
I am positive that George was abstinent????LOL talk about forcing your ideals on others.
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Poulenc3 months ago
American puritanism is a tough beast to slay.
The issue isn't abstinence--why should those just discovering sexual pleasure be compelled to postpone it?--but ensuring that unwanted pregnancy or disease be prevented.
Put bucks into that, not into morbid, life-denying attempts to make sexual need conform to obsolete dictates.
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mesodude3 months ago
Ahhh, geez...Why'd you have to bring *science* into the discussion? ;-P
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Beau78903 months ago
Um, I'm not sure anyone here has said that.
What they've said is that teenagers need to be informed about safety. They won't all remain abstinent, and those who don't should be aware of how to gain some measure of protection against unwanted pregnancy and disease.
You're against unwanted pregnancy and disease, aren't you?
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mesodude3 months ago
"So what you're saying is that school kids are such sex-crazed animals, our only hope is to give them free condoms and tell them to have at it. Hmmmm, how about NO?"
--It seems to me that it's those on the right who're the ones thinking that if young people learn about contraceptives, they will immediately turn to lives of wild promiscuity.
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newbie04203 months ago
When I was in school they taugh safe sex as both using protection and abstinance, has something changed?
Do absitance programs get more funding or something?
If anything they should be equal.
BTW, what is so "controversial" about abstinance?
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Wolfie20073 months ago
Realizer
No, they do not all have sex. Some children have parents who have raised them to respect themselves and not to have promiscuous sex just because they can. You act like they have no self control and society shouldn't expect them to act maturely. Your attitude is a big part of the problem. It is not right for teenagers to have promiscuous sex. Sex education in schools today generally promotes promiscuousness in most cases.
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Beau78903 months ago
it's not abstinence programs that are controversial. It's the fact that the Bush administration and many conservatives (and the group mentioned in the article) want to teach abstinence ONLY, and not teach anything about protection. They feel that teaching high-schoolers about STDs and birth control encourages sexual activity. (As if puberty doesn't do that all on its own.)
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newbie04203 months ago
Yeah, if it's abstiance only I agree that's stupid, a good combination of the two is definately needed tho, at least IMO.
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memestryker3 months ago
Newbie0420, When Bush was inaugurated, all of the government pages giving information on use of condoms and safe sex went "under construction" within a few days. Soon, states only got funding for "abstinence-only" programs. Once they were deemed an abject failure, states started refusing the funds.
Abstinence was always included as the only certain way to avoid pregnancy and STDs, and strong sanctions were always in place. But even so, the reason abortion was legalized is because it was so common--and frequently conducted by untrained personnel in unsafe conditions, and girls didn't seek or receive any follow-up care. People eventually decided their daughters', wives', and girlfriends' lives and well-being were more important and that it was a private issue between a female and her doctor (which is the way all doctor-patient relationships used to be, before government encroachment).
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memestryker3 months ago
Ouch! I wouldn't have broached that subject with mom no matter what! Kids have always had a great social network going, though. She and dad were pretty much right-wing freaks back then, so they didn't hear much from us kids.
I remember that everyone in my circle of friends knew who to ask for information if one decided to have an abortion when it was illegal, and it was a lot more common than people might think. We took care of each other and kept parents out of the picture for the most part.
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1-2-Oscar3 months ago
Everyone--EVERYONE--should be taught that abstinence is the only method of birth control which is 100% effective, and that it is also the single most effective way to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
The problem is that SOME people want abstinence to be the ONLY method taught to our young people, while OTHERS want to EXCLUDE abstinence from the curriculum entirely. Both these positions are wrong, and both fail to provide an adequate perspective to the young people who ultimately will make their own decisions.
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Tangent0013 months ago
I am not aware of a program that wants to EXCLUDE abstinence. Can you provide a link? I'd be interested in finding out their rationale.
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Charlson3 months ago
This is a case where abstinence ONLY is to be taught and they're trying to get federal funding for it.
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1-2-Oscar3 months ago
While it may not often be formally "excluded," there are a number of state and local curricula where abstinence is barely mentioned. When a program starts with the assumption that everyone will soon be fornicating like minks, the impact of such an assumption is frequently self-fulfilling.
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cloud153 months ago
Sex ed in school is a complete joke. Today teens get much more info on there own, whether it be from porn or movies (hard to tell the difference in some cases). They talked to us about sex ed during maybe 30 minutes of one health class, we learned nothing we didn't already know or needed to know.
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memestryker3 months ago
I hate to say this, but even before abstinence-only, kids mostly learned from other kids. I was not comfortable at all asking my parents, and when I did, they would always moralize and then give me short "just-enough" answers instead of really telling me what I wanted to know (but didn't know how to ask since I didn't know enough to formulate useful questions) and yuk, they were my parents!
Prior to the birds and bees movie in school, which only talked about eggs and sperm and fallopian tubes, etc., I learned most of it by watching animals mate, examining the human anatomy, and forming conclusions.
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Tangent0013 months ago
Before that section of Health class in Junior High, I had a lot of misinformation about sex from my friends. My Mom was a nurse, but the subject never came up until my junior year in High School. She sat me down and said it was time to talk about sex. I said, "Okay, what do you want to know?" (I was still a virgin, but that didn't keep me from being a jerk.)
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Poulenc3 months ago
TEACH abstinence?
Hmnmm.
I would imagine that that could be accomplished in one or two sentences, like,
"The only 100% effective way of ensuring that pregnancy and STS's don't occur is not to engage in sex at all. But there are other...."
There: I just taught it. So spending big bucks for "abstinence programs" seems a farce...especially if you're of a mind to teach abstinence only, in which case I guess my single sentence gets tarted (sorry!) up with...what? Statistics? Promises of hell-fire? Slides showing what happens to the human brain if you have premarital sex?
My point is, it would seem that teaching abstinence is in fact attempting to inculcate the idea.
Which is a bad idea.
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amazed3 months ago
I agree with all you said until -- ((My point is, it would seem that teaching abstinence is in fact attempting to inculcate the idea.
Which is a bad idea.))
Why is encouraging young people to remain celibate a "bad idea"?
I would be willing to bet that you have no kids. You can bet your ass that I encouraged my kids not to sleep around -- my son as much as my daughters. I told him that, he had to really take care of birth control himself, because he had no control over what happened once he got some girl pregnant -- she could have an abortion, even if he wanted the kid, she could keep the kid and he would be responsible for it regardless of whether he wanted her to have an abortion or give it up for adoption. I told them that, unless they learned nothing about love and life from their father and I, that there was much more to sex than scratching an itch, and it unleashes powerful emotions that could really string them out.
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