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Ear to the Ground

The Bush Baby Boom

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Posted on Jul 21, 2009
Flickr / ECohen and White House / Eric Draper

Yet another report confirms, as The Guardian explains, “that rates of teen pregnancy and STDs are, after more than a decade of decline, once again on the rise.” Thanks to President Bush’s abstinence-only sex education agenda, black, Hispanic and poor women are more likely to have unwanted pregnancies.

Ironically, Bush’s policies could produce a boom of baby Democrats.

Not to make light of America’s tragic backsliding in this area. A surge of unwanted pregnancies will doubtlessly lead to a surge in abortions. And we know conclusively that abstinence-only sex ed spreads disease alongside ignorance.

This is one of the former president’s failures that deserve more attention. Abstinence-only sex education is still failing children across America.

Melissa McEwan in The Guardian:

The new CDC report notes that “Every effort was made to present the data in a consistent manner with regard to age groups, race/ethnicity, sex and geographic location,” leaving an explicit investigation of poverty out of the equation altogether – though its findings indicate that American teens whose race/ethnicity and/or geographic location suggest a greater likelihood of poverty are also the most likely demographic to have increased rates of unwanted pregnancy and STDs. Both pregnancy and Aids rates are higher among Hispanic and non-Hispanic black young women aged 15-19 than any other ethnic group. Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were highest among non-Hispanic black young women and men aged 10-24. And the southern states “tend to have the highest rates of negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes, including early pregnancy and STDs.”

The Bush-era insistence on catastrophically inefficacious abstinence-only programmes did not only see a race- and income-based divergence in its effects domestically, but internationally, too. Like the global gag rule, which restricted US government funding to NGOs that provided abortion counselling or services abroad, Bush’s much-lauded Pepfar (President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) programme made a condition of its funding that one-third go to abstinence-only campaigns—though, in practice, fully “two-thirds of the money for the prevention of the sexual spread of HIV [went] to abstinence,” with tragic results among black and poor populations in Africa.

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By bogi666, July 22 at 6:27 pm #

It could be that black and Hispanic women have less knowledge, not genetically, access to preventive devices and information and live in cultures where the males are so disenfranchised that sexual promiscuity by males for sex is how they express their success. In total numbers it is white women who have Bush babies.

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By rfidler, July 22 at 9:43 am #

Logician:

Thanks for the well thought out and cogent reply. The impertinence of my question is unforgiveable.

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By liecatcher, July 21 at 8:21 pm #

BUSH BABY BOOM BUSTS FAMILIES & WEAKENS AMERICA

This is not about Bush the boob that David Letterman

made fun of & ridiculed throughout his presidency,

pushing the wrong program or policy,in this case, an

ineffectual abstinence campaign, but rather carrying

out a plan to produce fodder for the perpetual war

strategy & simultaneously continue the dumbing down &

weakening of America. Like Nancy Reagan’s “JUST SAY

NO TO DRUGS”. The FASCISTS call the progeny of unwed

mothers “useless feeders”; Rush Limbaugh likes to

call them “the great unwashed”.

So what caring people consider collateral damage of

failed policies is actually mission accomplished.

Another windfall of this bounty of bastards is more

business for MIPIC,MEDICAL INSURANCE PHARMACEUTICAL

INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. And finally to even joke about

these poor souls becoming democrats furthers the sham

that America has a two party system when in fact it’s

a FASCIST OLIGARCHY.

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By Logician, July 21 at 6:55 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase: “Dumb fuck.”

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By Frank, July 21 at 6:38 pm #

“Can someone explain why “black, Hispanic and poor women” are less receptive to the abstinence message than other women?”

Well, I’m sure that NONE of these things is a factor:

1) average intelligence and education level
2) anchor babies
3) ticket-to-welfare babies

No relation at all, I’m sure. Really.

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By rfidler, July 21 at 4:53 pm #

Can someone explain why “black, Hispanic and poor women” are less receptive to the abstinence message than other women?

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By hippie4ever, July 21 at 2:18 pm #

Of course “abstinence-only” failed; every program espoused by Bush and adopted by Idiot Nation was a sick joke thinly masking a war against the American people. Muzzling free speech in the schools—now that’s good training for creating a nation of sheeple.

A citizenry incapable of independent thought, soaked in fascist ideology, brainwashed with antiquarian religion…who needs a KGB when you’ve dumbed-down and isolated the population that relies on The Corporation for their information and beliefs?

It’s sickening to hear the media crowing about “all our freedoms” in “this great country of ours.” What freedom are they referring to, the right to remain silent, or the right to an overpriced and ineffectual attorney?

And whose country is it? Theirs? Of course it is, for now.

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By purplewolf, July 21 at 10:09 am #

Thank you Bush for the rise in more babies being born into poverty, along with your self righteous Christian bunch of cold heart do goodies, with their indifferent attitudes, who choose to cut the very funding for the survival of the nations most vulnerable. Go forth and be fruitful, don’t worry if you cannot afford to care for these unwanted babies, God will provide-yeah, right and neither will the Fundies or the party of NO. It is so comforting to know that YOU people think you know what is in the best interest of other peoples reproductive rights, whose lives and situations you will never experience, let alone give a thought to as to how your laws and decisions ruin the lives of those who can least afford the disaster you have created for them. I am certain all of those children born into poverty, thanks to your closed minded views dictated from some fairy tale book of heresy will be so grateful for their existence you have forced upon them by your false sense of “I know it all” attitude.

If there was ever a reason for retro-active abortion, you George W. Bush are the perfect example.

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By Slice, July 21 at 8:40 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

This is ironic considering Bush was a conservative.

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