Guardian UK: George Bush's sex education failure

[marmar]

George Bush's sex education failure
Teenage pregnancies and STDs in the US are on the rise again, thanks to George Bush's abstinence-only obsession

Melissa McEwan
guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 July 2009


"The data presented in this report indicate that many young persons in the United States engage in sexual risk behaviour and experience negative reproductive health outcomes." That is the very clinical and polite way a new Centre for Disease Control and Prevention report introduces its finding that rates of teen pregnancy and STDs are, after more than a decade of decline, once again on the rise.

This news is, of course, not really news at all. When former president George Bush was still pushing for more funding for abstinence-only sex education programmes in November 2007, it was immediately after a study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that comprehensive sex ed programmes – which included contraception information as an integral feature – were most effective at preventing teen pregnancy.

And that was six months after the Guttmacher Institute reported that "a nine-year, $8m evaluation of federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programmes found that these programmes have no beneficial impact on young people's sexual behaviour," and three years after congressman Henry Waxman requested a report (pdf) which found that over 80% of the (abstinence-only sex ed) curricula reviewed was found to contain "false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health," effectively ensuring that pregnancy rates and STDs would rise.

It was also a year after another report found that the increased number of unwanted pregnancies was disproportionately concentrated in impoverished communities: "Women living in poverty are now almost four times more likely to become pregnant unintentionally than women of greater means." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/20/george-bush-teen-pregnancy-abstinence

[burning rain]

1. Hey ho, more babies for the Lord.

And more dispensation of the Lord's justice to sinful, fornicating teens in the form of STDs.

[cap]

2. and I thought the article was about the latest antics of Republican politicians

eom

[Fearless]

3. Well that and the recession... both of which are his fault ironically.

[comtec]

4. I have a friend in new york who barely knows what a condom is for

let alone birth control or what emergency contraception does (a recent issue i won't go into)
And this was in NEW YORK CITY!!

I was flattened by this. When I was in HS (89-93 god im old) we got the whole shi-bang starting from Jr. High!

I'm really amazed by the fear these reisch ringers have of our own fucking (heh heh literally) bodies!

It's fine for the rich and well to do to be educated, but not for us grinds! (an actual term ivy leaguers use to describe us. grinds of coffee, that you throw away after you've sucked the flavor from them)

They bitch about population control of the poor, yet do NOTHING about it!

oh well. I'm in europe now where teens can talk circles around me when it comes to sex, prevention, etc!
Population control NOT a problem here. LOTS of teen sex ,very FEW teen pregnancies.

[Shallah Kali]

5. It is not a failure at all

It is a victory rightwing religious abstinence only crowd who got exactly what they wanted - people who have sex get punished by stds and unplanned pregnancies. The whole point is to make sex dirty and scary so no one will do it until marriage. :grr: