fayfreethinkers.com

A disaster for abstinence ideology

By Esther Kaplan Thu May 25, 2006 at 10:16:56 AM EST

Crushing news out of Uganda last week. The Bush administration's $1 billion experiment in using abstinence messages as the basis of HIV prevention has born its first fruit: In a public speech on May 18, Uganda's AIDS Commissioner Kihumuro Apuuli announced that HIV infections have almost doubled in Uganda over the past two years, from 70,000 in 2003 to 130,000 in 2005. And despite this chilling wake-up call, Bush has empowered Christian right activists to continue to push their abstinence-only agenda at a UN Special Session on HIV/AIDS, to begin next week. According to a State Department email I obtained, the official U.S. delegation is stacked with some of the very people who contributed to the debacle in Uganda.

The Rest

Well, we've seen how well is works to tell the 65% of American population who are obese to "Just Don't Eat" - and it only takes one exposure to HIV to pass it on. But then, abstinence-only hasn't done a very good job of reducing teen pregnancy or abortion (or you could say it's done a fine job of increasing teen pregnancy and abortion, as well as HIV). Everyone seems to be assuming that W & co WANT to reduce AIDS, teen pregnancy, and abortion. Considering how much political mileage they make out of the three, I doubt that assumption. As "observational science" indicates, they want to increase AIDS, teen (and other) pregnancy, and abortion because that is the result of their actions.

Darrel wrote:In a public speech on May 18, Uganda's AIDS Commissioner Kihumuro Apuuli announced that HIV infections have almost doubled in Uganda over the past two years, from 70,000 in 2003 to 130,000 in 2005.

The RWNJ spin will be, "Gee, imagine how high it would be if we hadn't provided abstinence education!"

These people make me sick; unfortunately for Ugandans, my sickness is nothing compared to the sickness BushCo is handing out on a silver platter.

Sex Ed Changes At School With 65 Pregnant Teens

POSTED: 8:17 am EDT August 15, 2006

CANTON, Ohio -- An Ohio school board is expanding sex education following the revelation that 13 percent of one high school's female students were pregnant last year.

There were 490 female students at Timken High School in 2005, and 65 were pregnant, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported.

The new Canton school board program promotes abstinence but also will teach students who decide to have sex how to do so responsibly, bringing the city school district's health curriculum in line with national standards.

The board made the changes in a vote at its regular meeting Monday.

The Rev. David Morgan served on a committee that developed the lesson plans. He said the new curriculum moves beyond the "Just Say No" approach.

Health textbooks, older than some students, will be replaced.

"If we had math books from 1988, reading books from 1988, as a parent, I would be furious," said Patty Rafailedes, a physical education teacher.

The Ohio Department of Education doesn't require schools to provide sex education, particularly when it comes to using contraceptives. The state curriculum calls for venereal disease education, which often is taught along with nutrition and the effects of drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

"Sex is more complex than the information about drugs and alcohol," said Bill Albert, a spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "It is not a not-now, not-ever message."

According to the Canton Health Department, statistics through July 2005 showed that 104 of the 586 babies born to Canton residents in Aultman Hospital and Mercy Medical Center had mothers between the ages of 11 and 19.

LINK

When I was teaching 9th grade (yes, 9th grade - 15 year olds) I generally had at least one student a year who'd already had a baby. Statistically speaking, that isn't too bad - less than 1% - but as far as I'm concerned, ANY at that age is bad. We need sex education - as in how babies happen, how not to have babies - and especially, why not to have babies while under 20 and/or in school - starting at about age 12 (or even earlier to take advantage of the "yuch" factor in preadolescents' attitudes towards sex). That's to address consent sex. As long as rape exists, and homo sap is a rape species, prevention of pregancy as well as all STDs (including HIV) has to have a backup plan.

Teenagers have sex. Always have, always will. It is what every hormone in their body is telling them to do. (not to mention their friends) Abstinence teaching just does not work. It is proven time and time and time again. My hope is that one day people can turn their energy towards the betterment of humanity and not towards the enforcement of a book.

Teenagers have the combined biological drive for sexual expression and societal covert insistence on it (while overt disapproval is rampant). Since our society (& possibly species) mentally/emotionally links sex and love, and females of the species have been taught to believe (until they've had enough experience otherwise) that sex proves love, abstinance-only programs don't work. Change the social situation and they would work better than they do, but they will never be 100% successful - especially not in a society whose young men believe (by something like 75% - I lost the research on this - it was done dome 20-odd years ago) that if they are sexually arosed in the presence of a female, that's legitimate grounds for rape.

The True Face of Abortion Opponents
By fubar
Aug 25 2006

It will be most interesting to hear the reaction of anti-abortion groups to the FDA's decision yesterday to allow Plan-B "morning after" pills to be sold over the counter (limited to those over 18 ). The most often cited reason for these groups opposing anything related to abortion (clinics, pills, etc.) is that they are doing it to protect the life of a helpless child. But Plan-B contains doses of the hormone Progestin which prevents the release or fertilization of an egg. In other words it keeps a woman's reproductive system out of the reproductive lottery. Thanks to Science the whole raison d'etre of abortion groups is rendered moot.

No released eggs means no fertilization, no fetus, nothing. So this leaves these groups with three options:

1. Concede that science may have finally found a way to eliminate abortions, pack up their bags and go home.
2. Stick their fingers in their ears and go la la la la...
3. Admit that their objection isn't really to abortion, but to contraception -- or better yet, to people having sex.

Some of them are making a valiant attempt at a fourth option: to change the definition of an 'embryo' (i.e. what they're trying to protect) from a fertilized egg implanted in a woman's womb and undergoing cell division to a plain old fertilized egg, just floating around. The idea is that anything that gets in the way of this whole sperm + egg -> fertilization -> implantation -> cell-division process is tantamount to abortion and therefore qualifies as an object of their ire. But it's a real grasping at straws based on a single sentence in the manufacturer's fine print. Besides the FDA's decision to allow over-the-counter sales has let the cat out of the bag. Now they have to take a position that is consistent with the fact that abortion clinics may very well stop performing abortions altogether because nobody needs them any more.

That takes us back to the three options. I'm not holding my breath for #1 to happen any time soon and they can get away with #2 for only so long before they run out of air. Sooner or later they'll have to admit #3 -- that at the root of their objection is that they just hate it for unmarried people to have sex, that their blood starts boiling whenever they picture their daughter getting jiggy with the neighbor's son -- even if both of them are over eighteen.

That, of course, puts them on the same wavelength as the Taliban and the rest of the Sharia-loving crowd -- and if there's one thing that makes these people angrier than women exercising control over their own bodies, it's being compared to a bunch of Muslims.

So thanks Dr. Science, for driving a nice little wedge between these people and their nasty little judgemental causes and ripping away their thinly-veiled morality facade (oops, did I say veiled?) I don't like abortions either. Nobody does. I wish they could be avoided altogether -- and it looks like they very well may be.

Update: The far bigger impact of Plan-B and other non-abortive solutions is that they essentially render the whole Roe v. Wade debate pointless too. So what that you've got all your Supreme Court justices lined up? Go ahead and outlaw abortion. Nobody will care if they can just walk into the pharmacy and buy a couple of pills. It's like finally getting the courts to outlaw hand-crank starters on cars. Go for it. Have fun. Or not. Whatever.

LINK

Not, unfortunately for the most vulnerable - the under 18's. Even if the sex was consentual, they still can't get Plan-B, nor can they get an abortion without parental consent. It's even worse if the sex was not consentual and/or (la, la, la, la) incest. Of course, telling the father and grandfather in one about the coming infant sometimes elicits a beating that aborts the fetus anyway.

However, it is very true - and very truly wonderful - that Plan B has the potential (where available) to totally do away with abortion.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:Not, unfortunately for the most vulnerable - the under 18's. Even if the sex was consentual, they still can't get Plan-B,....

DAR
Well, not legally. What do you think the odds are that there will be a little bit of bootlegging going on? The under 18's usually know someone who is over 18, and no visit to a doctor required....

Hopefully there will be considerably more "bootlegging" going on than in the case of Senior Skip Day parties with the high school set. But how sad that the only justice and mercy in this situation comes from breaking the law. Unfortunately it's not only in the Judeo/Christian/Muslim religion that right and wrong don't matter - only obedience.

Darrel wrote:In other words it keeps a woman's reproductive system out of the reproductive lottery. Thanks to Science the whole raison d'etre of abortion groups is rendered moot.

No released eggs means no fertilization, no fetus, nothing. So this leaves these groups with three options:

1. Concede that science may have finally found a way to eliminate abortions, pack up their bags and go home.
2. Stick their fingers in their ears and go la la la la...
3. Admit that their objection isn't really to abortion, but to contraception -- or better yet, to people having sex.

DOUG
Since when have the facts been the deciding factor in disputes with religionists? The facts can't speak for themselves. Facts are mute. People speak for them--and often put words in their mouths.

The right-wingers have already chosen a tactic--claim that plan B causes abortions in some cases.

The Plan B official homepage states:

Plan B® is not RU-486 (the abortion pill); it will not work if you are already pregnant.

...Plan B® is not a substitute for routine birth control.

...Plan B® should not be used if you are already pregnant (because it will not work)...

The right-wing tactic is to emphasize:
a. Women will use Plan B for routine birth control and:

• i. Become dirty whores, and
  ii. Shirk responsibility for family planning

b. Plan B "hurts embryos" and thus is a form of abortion anyway.

See here for evidence of this two-step tactic.