Tag Archives: Contraceptives

News

Planned Parenthood pushes intensive sex education onto 10-year olds

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Story from Fox News. (H/T Protein Wisdom via ECM)

Excerpt:

The report, “Stand and Deliver,” charges that religious groups, specifically Catholics and Muslims, deny their young access to comprehensive sexual programs and education.

“Young people’s sexuality is still contentious for many religious institutions. Fundamentalist and other religious groups — the Catholic Church and madrasas (Islamic Schools) for example — have imposed tremendous barriers that prevent young people, particularly, from obtaining information and services related to sex and reproduction. Currently, many religious teachings deny the pleasurable and positive aspects of sex.” the report states.

The report demands that children 10 and older be given a “comprehensive sexuality education” by governments, aid organizations and other groups, and that young people should be seen as “sexual beings.”

[…]Michelle Turner, president of the Maryland-based Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, said Planned Parenthood was simply trying to eliminate parental say.

“What are they trying to do? They are trying to eliminate the role of mom and dad in the family,” Turner said. “For Planned Parenthood to decide that governments, private organizations and religious organizations should make decisions about kids’ sexuality is just going too far.”

“It is part of a bigger push to change the way we think about sex,” she said. That sex is all about pleasure and there are no consequences. They are wrong. No matter how much we teach children, some will make mistakes. They will forget. And Planned Parenthood doesn’t want to deal with that,” she said.

“They see religious groups, especially those that counsel abstinence and waiting until marriage, as bad guys,” she added. “We aren’t.”

Remember Planned Parenthood’s revenue is proportional to the number of abortions they perform, so they have every reason to lobby the Democrats to pass laws that allow Planned Parenthood to bypass parents and entice children as young as 10 into sexual activity. It’s all about the money.

News

New study finds focus on abstinence in sex-ed classes can delay sexual activity

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Story from the Heritage Foundation. (H/T The Washington Post via Neil Simpson)

Excerpt:

A new study concludes that abstinence-only education had a significant and long-term effect in reducing teen sexual activity.  “The abstinence-only intervention reduced sexual initiation,” reports the study, which is featured in the most recent issue of the medical journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, published by the American Medical Association.

The study found that a short eight-hour abstinence program reduced sexual activity among youth by a third.  Despite the brevity of the abstinence training the effects lasted a full two years after students left the classroom.  Moreover, if students who took the abstinence course did become sexually active they were not less likely to use contraception.

In contrast, study found that alternative types of sex ed failed.  “Safe sex” programs (which promote contraception only) and “comprehensive sex ed” programs (which teach both abstinence and contraceptive use), had no effect on teen sexual behavior.  These programs neither reduced teen sex nor did they increase contraceptive use among teens, which is their major emphasis.

These findings are based on a randomized controlled experiment, the gold standard in program evaluation and designed to produce unbiased results.  The study analyzed 662 African-American 6th and 7th grade students in four public middle schools serving low-income communities in a northeastern U.S. city.  They were randomly assigned to participate in an eight-hour abstinence-only program, an eight-hour “safe sex” program, an eight- or twelve-hour comprehensive sex education program, or a general health-only, non-sex ed program, which represented the control group in the experiment.

Bolstered by its rigorous randomized controlled design, this study provides important new findings.  It strengthens the existing body of empirical evidence on the effectiveness of abstinence education.  A 2008 Heritage study, for example, reviewed 15 studies of authentic abstinence programs and found that 11 of the 15 studies reported positive behavioral changes among teens.

But all was not well:

Sadly, despite the social science evidence, the Obama administration and Congress have eliminated all federal spending on abstinence education and, instead, have created additional funding for comprehensive sex education.

Why do the secular-left Democrats like Obama oppose abstinence and chastity? Planned Parenthood is paid for each abortion. They also get subsidies from taxpayer money collected by the federal government. And from their profits, they make political contributions to Democrats. Just like global warming, it’s all about the money.

One last thing. I’m nearing my mid-thirties, and I am very happily chaste. So it’s not true that “everyone is doing it”.

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Polemics

Christians destroy their own religious freedom by supporting single-payer health care

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Muddling Towards Maturity linked to a Chuck Colson column which makes an essential point about how allowing a secular government to control health care is bad for Christians who want to live authentic Christian lives in the public square. Muddling writes, “Chuck Colson tells the story of Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic college that won’t allow abortion, sterilization, and contraception to be covered by its employees’ health care plan.”

Excerpt:

[The Catholic Church] teaches that abortion, sterilization, and contraception are immoral. So it makes sense that a conservative Catholic college would make sure that its health plan doesn’t cover such practices.

Well, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has a different word for Belmont Abbey College: “sexist.”

Using reasoning that could only be concocted by a consummate bureaucrat, the director of the agency’s Charlotte office has said that denying contraception is sexist “because only females take oral prescription contraceptives. By denying coverage, men are not affected, only women.”

The EEOC stepped in because eight college employees complained about the lack of coverage. The EEOC has now ordered the college to find a resolution. Even though North Carolina law protects religious institutions from having to cover contraception, abortion, and voluntary sterilization, the case could end up in the federal courts.

Colson also talks about how Catholic adoption agencies were forced to close as a result of state control of medical care provision. Catholic organizations do a ton of good in the world, so I find it appalling that so many Catholics voted for Obama. If you marginalize the worldview that produces the good works, you don’t get to keep the good works. The good works were rationally grounded by the good worldview.

This is a MUST-READ for those of you who believe that big government programs, like single-payer health care, are compatible with Christianity. If you want to put the needs of the poor above the gospel, that’s fine. But, in my view, Jesus put the gospel above the needs of the poor.

Have a look:

1Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. 2″But not during the Feast,” they said, “or the people may riot.”

3While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

4Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages[a] and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

6″Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

(Mark 14:1-9, NIV)

And you can see this problem in many other areas as well, such as welfare, hate crime bills and the removal of conscience protections. Few Christians, and certainly not those who support single-payer health care, would even recognize the imposition of the government’s vision of morality and purpose on individuals as fascism. Even homeschooling Christians sometimes support big government secular socialism which can lead to banning homeschooling.

Many Christians voted for the most pro-abortion President ever, and for the most anti-family, anti-marriage, anti-child President ever. I think this is a consequence of the church’s complete unwillingness to connect what goes on in the church with anything objectively real outside the church. We tell people stories that make them feel certain emotions, and they use that emotionalized conception of Christianity to decide who to vote for.

2008 voting broken by religious groups

2008 voting broken by religious groups

(Click for larger image)

I think what is really happening here is that Christians who prefer single-payer health care on “moral grounds” are either 1) trying to justify stealing money from their neighbors to pay for their own risky, irresponsible decisions, or 2) trying to embrace trendy, popular policies that put them in a favorable light with the secular neighbors. Either way, it’s a loss for God. Doing good is the job of free individuals, not the job of a secular, socialist government.