Bush Seeking Abstinence Education
        Sex In The News 2005

For those of you who don't already know, abstinence education actually has proven to be less effective in preventing STDs. But still based on his religious believes he is leading the U.S. into the dark ages by seeking to teach only abstinence.

President Bush's reelection insures that more federal money will flow to abstinence education that precludes discussion of birth control, even as the administration awaits evidence that the approach gets kids to refrain from sex. Congress last weekend included more than $131 million for abstinence programs in a $388 billion spending bill, an increase of $30 million but about $100 million less than Bush requested.

The president has been a strong proponent of school-based sexual education that focuses on abstinence, but does not include instruction on safe sex. ``We don't need a study, if I remember my biology correctly, to show us that those people who are sexually abstinent have a zero chance of becoming pregnant or getting someone pregnant or contracting a sexually transmitted disease,'' said Wade Horn, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services in charge of federal abstinence funding. What Mr. Horn fails to recognize is that sex is a normal part of being human, that 80% of those teens that take abstinence pledges actually go on to have sex despite taking the pledge and do so without contraception, or protection against STDs.

Surveys indicate that roughly 50 percent of teens say they have sex before they leave high school. While the nation's teenage pregnancy rate is declining, young people 15 to 24 account for about half the new cases of sexually transmitted diseases in the United States each year.

Teaching only about abstinence means students will be less able to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. ``The only 100 percent way to avoid a car collision is not to drive, but the federal government sure does a lot of advocacy for safety belts,'' said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a group that promotes education about birth control and condom use. Because a realist knows that people are going to drive their cars just like people, including teens ARE going to have sex.

The push for abstinence is one of several Bush policies popular with religious conservatives. Also topping the agenda: the faith-based initiative, which aims to open more government programs to religious groups. The Bush administration is going so far as to tell people that condoms are less than 60% effective in preventing pregnancy and STDs when we have know for many years that it is over 90%.

Hopefully we Americans won't all put our heads in the sand when people try and manipulate us into believing lies about science because it conflicts with their religious agenda. Honestly, this country is taking a huge step into sexual repression, and before you know it kids will be getting taught that they will go blind or grow hair on their palms if they masturbate... and of course that would only apply to men, because women have no desire to masturbate. Give me a break!

Just think about a few statistics shown below for a moment and ask yourself why we would NOT want to teach our children about STD prevention, so that should they have sex they would be prepared to stay safe. Don't we love our children in the U.S. enough to want to protect them and understand that they are likely to have some sort of sexual contact that would put them at risk for STDs before marriage?

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