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By Sherry Buchanan
$19.80
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By Daniel Domscheit-Berg
$15.64
$20
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GanMed64 (CC BY 2.0)
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lists the Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education, a pro-abstinence program aimed at middle and high schoolers, as one of almost three dozen “evidenced-based” sex education programs that qualify as effective in preventing teenage pregnancy.
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Pat Bagley, Cagle Cartoons, Salt Lake Tribune —
Posted on Feb 28, 2012
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Sarah Palin’s strict views have turned her into a grandma for the second time; al-Qaida takes a page out of Disney’s book to recruit children; meanwhile, Facebook fights Google+ by adding news to its online community. These discoveries and more after the jump.
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She’s been one of America’s most prominent teen moms, she’s a member of a growing Alaskan dynasty and, like her mom, Bristol Palin has now become a celebreality star on that dancing show lots of people watch. Here, she returns to ... (continued)
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AP / Charles Rex Arbogast
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A girl can gain a lot of wisdom from adversity, and, as a teen mom and as Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol Palin has no doubt encountered some life challenges in just 19 years. But is that hard-won knowledge worth $30,000 a pop?
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Wikimedia Commons / United States Government
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Another day, another Capitol Hill sex scandal: On Tuesday, Congressman Mark Souder, a pro-life and pro-abstinence Republican from Indiana, announced that he was resigning after admitting he’d had an affair with a female staffer. The woman in question ... (continued)
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Flickr / Hellgasms!
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This isn’t going to sound all that shocking, but remember that this country is still wrapping its head around evolution: Criminalizing abortion does not reduce the number of abortions; it reduces the number of safe abortions. Contraception, however, does reduce abortions, according to an epic study of 197 countries.
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Flickr / ECohen and White House / Eric Draper
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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.
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By Marie Cocco — The decline in contraceptive use may cheer those who have promoted faith-inspired school curricula, but now we have sad and clear evidence that political foolishness among adults is leading to foolish and harmful behavior among kids.
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It’s definitely “do as I say, not as I do” material, but Bristol Palin showed up on NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday morning with dad Todd and baby Tripp in an effort to prevent other teenagers from becoming parents before they’re ready. Matt Lauer snuck in a question about babydaddy Levi Johnston, but Bristol totally wasn’t having it.
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This Canadian Planned Parenthood commercial makes the argument for (or against?) sex education.
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AP photo / Andrew Medichini
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On his way to his first visit to Africa, Pope Benedict XVI told attendant members of the press that he believes encouraging condom use not only doesn’t help in the fight against AIDS, but actually worsens the situation.
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gaywired.com
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Last fall, Bristol Palin became a controversial figure in her mother Sarah Palin’s vice presidential bid when it was revealed, not long after the elder Palin took to the campaign trail, that the teenaged Bristol was pregnant by her high school boyfriend. Now Bristol has re-emerged to make a few comments that run against her mom’s approach to teen sex ed.
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AP photo / Charles Rex Arbogast
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After passing the last few months of her pregnancy under public scrutiny, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s 18-year-old daughter, Bristol Palin, gave birth to a boy on Saturday and named him Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston.
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By Ellen Goodman — Well now, isn’t that a relief. The infamous “pregnancy pact” at Gloucester High School turns out to be an urban legend.
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urbansemiotic.com
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If ever there was irrefutable evidence that abstinence education doesn’t quite work, this is it. A new study from the Centers for Disease Control finds that at least one in four U.S. teenage girls is infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
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By Marie Cocco — Countless studies show that abstinence-only sex education just doesn’t work, so why is it getting more money than ever from the federal government?
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healthofchildren.com
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While the nation’s tweens and teens are taught the laughable “abstinence only” government-sponsored curriculum about sex, one middle school in Maine is taking a more realistic approach to the matter, offering a range of birth control options in an effort to curb a troubling trend toward teen pregnancy among its students. Yes, you read that right: This is a middle school we’re talking about here.
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The Department of Health and Human Services’ latest abstinence ad commands the viewer to “tell your kids you want them to wait till they’re married to have sex.” That’s the Bush administration for you: Forget about the heaps of data that show a strategy doesn’t work and just keep throwing money at it.
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totallychoice.com
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File under “Your Tax Dollars at Work”: Congress has once again approved a three-month extension of a $50-million nationwide abstinence-education program, a move detractors say ignores indications that the approach (shock!) may not be working for America’s teens.
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kenyabirds.org.uk
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What’s the right way to talk to children about sex? Presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have different ideas about how to answer this classic question—and for his part, Obama thinks stories about storks don’t fly after a certain age. Meanwhile, Romney proudly touts his record in promoting abstinence education.
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time.com
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So much for just saying no as a sex education policy: A large-scale congressional study of the effects of costly abstinence education programs in American schools concluded that one or two years of classroom indoctrination had no significant impact on if and when teens have sex.
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researchmatters.harvard.edu
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A new study of 38,000 Americans has found that 95 percent had premarital sex, challenging the wisdom of the abstinence-only sex education programs favored by the Bush administration. According to the study’s author: “It would be more effective ... to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active—which nearly everyone eventually will.”
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abstinence.net
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The Bush administration has selected a doctor, above, who opposes premarital sex, contraception and abortion to direct the $283-million office that oversees programs for teen pregnancy, family planning and abstinence programs.
This despite the fact that 80 percent of Americans want contraception taught in sex ed classes.
ALSO: If you haven’t vomited yet today, check out Abstinence.net.
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From Salon
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The federal government is expanding the scope of its abstinence programs to people up to age 29—proving yet again that the federal government takes its marching orders from Christian evangelicals who believe that Jesus is offended by premarital sex.
(h/t: Huff Po)
A relevant aside: H.L. Mencken defined puritanism as “the haunting fear that somebody, somewhere, is having a good time.”
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From feministing
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An Ohio school board voted to allow discussion of contraception in sex education classes upon learning that 13% of one high school’s female students were pregnant.
Earlier: Congress declines to fund abstinence only-programs
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By Ellen Goodman — The columnist says Bush’s veto of the stem cell bill has set him apart from his colleagues in the GOP and put him squarely in the ranks of the loony right. She also takes on a range of other “wedge issues” that have proved so divisive as to end up dividing even the staunchest conservatives.
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Maybe it was towering piles of evidence attesting to the fact that virginity pledges don’t work, but whatever it was, Congress declined to add more funds to abstinence-until-marriage programs. (Via Salon.)
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Yet more evidence that the abstinence-until-marriage crowd is deluding itself into believing that virginity pledges have any real value. (Above, virginity pledgers and their fathers at a so-called purity ball.)
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By Gene Gerard — New Truthdig contributor Gene Gerard, a longtime college professor of history, religion and ethics, examines the efforts of conservative legislators to stifle discussion of contraceptives in public schools—in favor of abstinence-only education.
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Check out this documentary about a faith-based abstinence program that religious-right forces installed in New Mexico public schools. Watch for the part about the covert “purity” war room.
Posted on May 24, 2006
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An Op-Ed writer in The N.Y. Times says that it’s no wonder chastity vows don’t work: Christian communities don’t meaningfully support those who make them.
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From the Washington Post
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Western European teens have fewer pregnancies, and lower levels of STDs, than their American counterparts. Why? Because teens in Europe have easy access to contraceptives, confidential healthcare and comprehensive sex education. Teen sex is seen as a healthy thing. (Compare that to America’s puritanical, ineffective abstinence programs.)
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From generationsoflight.myicontrol.com
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A Harvard study further confirms that abstinence pledges are basically bunk.
Want to dig deeper? Check out Purity Balls.
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Countries with AIDS epidemics actually have to cut the money they spend on treatment in order to conform to Bush’s requirements for spending on abstinence programs, reports the government watchdog.
But it’s all good, because this way, God isn’t being offended by people having sex before marriage.
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