10 years ago, I would have debated you on this, and denied the truth of your statement.  After waiting 40 years to finally get republicans in power to "show us how to do it right", I am just disillusioned, and agree with you.  When given the chance, republicans just showed how similar they are to democrats.  Not how different.

LW

I deleted your comment because I'm tired.

I'm tired of you constantly bashing my son every chance you get.  He doesn't deserve your sharp, mean-spirited tongue.  You don't even know him. 

He's a good kid.  He's a wonderful father and husband and is doing a wonderful job in serving our country as a LT in the Air Force.  I think enough is enough. 

I've let the things stand you have said against him in the past, even commenting on where you've got it wrong, but enough is enough.  It serves no purpose only showing yourself in a bad light.   

If you would like to stick with the issus and re-phrase your comment without the bashing of my son, I won't delete you. 

again, you're wrong LW.   I think I answered you fairly and honestly. 

Keep it to the issue and leave the personal attacks behind  and you'll be just fine. 

There are many out there.  And there are studies that have been done that prove that abstinence-only sex-ed doesn't do any better at preventing teen sex than comprehensive sex-ed, which brings me back to my analogy about teaching a child to look both ways before crossing the street.  Shouldn't you give the kids the information to hopefully help them make smarter decisions if you can?

The last time I was in a sex-ed class was when I was in high school health back in 1993-1994.  I had some form of sex-ed starting when I was in 5th grade and going up to 9th.  And while we didn't do that mechanical crying babies we did do flour babies and egg babies.  As for condoms being handed out, again I would rather the kids have easy access to condoms so that they can use them if the need arises rather than being without and risking STDs and pregnancy.

The studies that I've read of late don't show this to be the case.  In fact they say that abstinence-only programs don't do anything to prevent teens from having sex.  What they do is not provide the teens that end up having sex information to help them prevent the spreading of STDs and pregnancy.

We are in agreement here.  Teens make some really dumb decisions.  But would you rather them have incorrect or no information on a subject so that their dumb decisions are that much more stupid, or would you rather they have some good information so that they can help prevent the spreading of disease and pregnancy?  Again I go back to my analogy, when do you start teaching your child to look both ways before crossing the street?  When they start walking so that by the time they are old enough they already know to look both ways, or do you wait until you deem them ready to cross the street and run the risk of them getting hit by a car if they attempt to cross before you deem it's ok?

As I have said I advocate comprehensive sex-ed which includes a lot of harping on the fact that abstinence is best, but also provides them with the education so they can make better decisions than they would without the information.  I'm all for sending kids home with flour babies, or egg babies, or those mechanical crying babies.  Anything to teach these kids about the consequences of their actions so that they can make better more informed decisions.  Merely telling them not to have sex isn't enough.

That's simply not true.  As I have said there are numerous studies that show that neither abstinence-only nor comprehensive sex-ed prevent teen sex more than the other.  But at least in comprehensive there is the chance that the kids involved might make more intelligent decisions since they have information to go off of.  To deny them the information is like randomly pulling wired out of a time bomb, sure you might pull the right one but you may just as easy have it blow up in your face.  But you do hit on a very important aspect here, the parents.  The school can provide all the education in the world but at the end of the day the parents have the most influence over their children.  If they choose to simply ignore the topic of sex you end up with problems.  If the parents have an open dialog with their children at least the kids will know that there is someone else there to listen if they need it.

And as far as comprehensive sex ed working or not, from my recollection there was only one girl in my entire graduating class of a couple hundered kids that was pregnant.  I have no idea how many kids had sex, but I know that only one was ever pregnant.

If you agree with that statement then you agree with comprehensive sex education.  That's what those mock babies are part of.  Comprehensive sex education isn't just handing out condoms or teaching the kids about birth control, it's teaching the kids about the consequences of having sex like STDs.  At some point you need to start treating kids as intelligent human beings and provide them with the information they need to make good decisions, even when they are making bad decisions.  It makes no sense to deny the kids information on a topic when that information could mean the difference between a kid having sex and coming away with an STD and/or pregnancy and a kid just having sex.

Honestly where do you expect the kids to learn about sex if not from a comprehensive sex education program?  From the entertainment industry?  Because that's where they will pick it up from and that source in unreliable at best, flat out wrong at worst.

Merely providing information isn't giving them permission to have sex, it is educating them so that when they do have sex (whether it's before or after marriage) they do so with some amount of intelligence to prevent spreading diseases and unintetional pregnancies.

Developed a lithp?

KFC POSTS:

Me too!

EL DUDERINO #60

I've been fighting against so-called comprehensive sex education for 15 years. The concept of institutionalizing 13 years of explicit sex instruction in grades K through 12th is asinine. immoral, child abuse and a total waste of tax money. Public sex instruction through programs designed by the state, school boards, teacher's unions, or radical ideologues invades children's natural right to privacy and strips away their natural state of innocence of chastity and modesty.

More specifically to answer your question ELDUDERINO, we can understand what is so wrong with sex ed programs from looking back to the years when there was none and comparing what is happening now in schools throughout our land. I firmly believe that the difference between then and now is becasue we were given moral and ethical standards in school. Back then, educators, parents and children all respected one another and the primary function of education was teaching of facts and subject matter. Morals and good character was taught along with reading, writing and arithmetic. Sadly, tragically, public schools have become human resource centers.  

Both history and statistical evidence show that there was no horrific student violence toward other students and teachers, no police presence or video cameras requried in schools, no epidemic of students infected with venereal diseases. Then our schools weren't plagued with drug abuse, teenage promiscuity and pregnancies. The students weren't stressed out, depressed or committing suicide. Today, any objective person can only conclude that the staggeringly high numbers and instances of these pathologies in our student population are casualties of 13 years of classroom sex instruction innocuously disguised and packaged as Family life or Health Education.

KFC POSTS:

Absolutely true...comprehensive "safe sex ed" instruction is permissive in nature and attitude...the instructors teach: do it.....1... when you are ready....2 as long as it's consentual....3...be safe doing it...3 have the BC or condom handy.

 Comprehensive classroom sex instruction becomes progressively more explicit each year of schooling. Do you realize that the sex ed programs, the curriculum, the sexually explicit materials, booklets, videos, the condoms, Birth control and services are provided either by SIECUS  or by a coalition of financially vested advocacy organizations such as area clinics or Planned Parenthood?  The goal isn't to discourage teens from having sex, but to prevent them from having children. The strategy...teach students how, when where to acquire and use birth control including emergency contraceptives pills and abortion. This is done all too often without parental knowledge or permission. In fact, in some cases, parental involvement is seen as interference.

Abortion is discussed as an aspect of birth control however, students are never told or shown the unpleasant realities of what abortionists actually do to kill the baby and remove him from the womb. If the school doesn't have its own clinic, many state laws permits teachers, counselors, or school nurses to refer minor girls to a family planning clinic for their services including referral or even for obtaining a abortion without parental notification or permission.

Who "gains" when minor age boys and girls become sexually active and when the "safe sex" approach doesn't work? It would be Planned Parenthood and the area clinics wouldn't it? Can you see what's happening here? These very organizations who provide condoms, contraceptives and abortion, design the curriculum, issue the guidelines, have a whopper of a financial vested interest in keeping kids sexually active through so -called comprehensive sex ed.   

Do you really want your childs source of sex education to be other kids or the entertainment industry?  I don't know about you but I would much rather they get the correct information from reputable sources, there peers are anything but reputable.  Getting information from there peers is what leads to false information like you can't get STDs from oral sex getting around.

And Abstinence is part of comprehensive sex education as well.  I don't understand why you think that comprehensive sex ed doesn't encourage abstinence.  If there are programs out there that ignore abstinence then they need to be stopped because abstinence needs to be highlighted as the only 100% effective method to avoid STDs and pregnancy.

This doesn't screw with my logic at all.  The girl obviously wasn't taught properly.  She wasn't told what the consequences of her actions would be.  I'm not saying that all comprehensive sex-ed programs out there are flawless, but they're certainly better than abstinence only because at least in comprehensive they are given information that they can use to make better decisions, it doesn't mean that they will always make good decisions.

No I haven't raised any teens.  But I sure as hell am going to make sure they have access to all the information they need and I sure as hell would stress the importance of abstinence to avoid STDs and pregnancy.  Ultimately it doesn't matter what they are taught in schools because the parents have more influence over their children then they realize, I know that from personal experience.  Also sex-ed tends to be an optional curriculum in schools that parents can opt their children out of if they disagree with the program.  I know I had to bring home a permission slip every year before sex-ed started and kids who didn't have permission to take the course had to go to the library during that class time.  So again the parents have more influence than they sometimes realize.

Talk about misrepresenting statistics.  You know obessity has increased since sodas have been invented, maybe they are to blame for the epidemic of obessity, lets get rid of them and see what happens.  Maybe it's the influx of sex into everyday life that is causing the problems you noted rather than the sex education.  You the medias choice to focus on Jamie Lynn Spears' pregnancy vs actual news.  Or maybe how pervasive sex is in our every day lives.  Times have changed, you can't blame it all on comprehensive sex education.  At least with sex ed the kids are given some knowledge to protect them from STDs and pregnancy.  And knowledge is power.

That is just flat out wrong.  Parental permission is always needed for a child to enter into any sex-ed whether it be abstinence-only or comprehensive.  It has been that way at least since the late 80s when I started receiving sex-ed.

I have never heard of schools having their own abortion clinics, that is news to me.  And the only way they could refer the kids to a clinic to get an abortion without parental notification is if the state law allows abortions to occur without parental notification.  If the state requires notification then there is no way for the school to get around that.  If you want parental notification on the books then you need to talk to your state representatives.

Finally a voice of reason.  I too wouldn't agree with Kindergarders getting sex-ed, but by 5th grade I wouldn't have a problem with it (that's when I started to get it).  The bottom line is that too many parents are either unwilling or afraid to talk to their kids about sex which leaves the education up to the public schools.  You are more than welcome to opt your child out of the program if you disagree with it, but please do something to educate your children in those cases.  Ignoring an issue doesn't make it go away.

I never said that you or LuLu were ignoring the issue.  I was making a general plea that if you (as in the general you meaning everyone) opt your (again the general your) child out of sex ed please do something to educate your child about sex whether it be abstinence or comprehensive.  I may disagree with what method you may choose to educate your child with, but if you are doing it at home then you can do whatever you want.

Yes you can.  You can say something along the lines of: "I hope you never have to use these until you're married but if you do choose to have sex before marriage please use a condom."

I have the utmost respect for that approach.  The problem is that too many parents choose to ignore the topic of sex altogether and leave their kids to fend for themselves.  If those kids are then opted out of the sex ed in schools then they have nowhere else to turn but to extremely unreliable sources and problems occur.  I would much prefer that sex ed wasn't needed in schools, but until ALL parents are willing to talk to their kids about sex it will be needed.

And that should be the cornerstone of any sex ed class.  Comprehensive sex ed should teach the kids that abstinence is the best practice, but for a school to ignore teaching kids about proper use of birth control methods is irresponsible in my mind.  My sister ended up with abstinence-only education (I don't know why my school district changed it's tune by the time she got to sex ed but they did) and when she was in college she ended up sharing birth control pills with her roommate and they both thought they were protected against pregnancy.  Luckily when I found out about this I was able to inform her correctly before anything happened.

At least from the comprehensive sex ed programs that I've heard about this is simply NOT true.  They are informed that abstinence is extremely important, and if there is a so-called comprehensive sex ed class that doesn't encourage absistenence then it is not truly comprehensive in my mind and should be discontinued in favor of one that does encourage abstienence.  I completely disagree that offering students access to birth control gives them a green light to having sex.  I think that is a point that you and I will never agree on (add it to the list).

KFC POSTS:

I agree. One, if not the main, reason why is because there is a war going on between the two factions. The contraceptive "safe sex" ed lobby made up of organizations like the NEA, SIECUS, Alan Guttmacher, and Planned Parenthood fight tooth and nail against sharing tax payer money which would fund abstinence only education programs.  

EL DUDERINO POSTS:

The only fact that the comprehensive sex ed side can rightly claim can be taken from a direct quote from Donna Leiberman, NY head of CLU reproductive rights effort, who over 10 years ago, admitted in a debate, "Every scientific study of sex education programs that has ever been done shows that the only effect of sex education is increased use of contraceptives among teengagers."   

EL-D,

The studies are out there.... 

One of the largest and most comprehensive studies of teen sex education was conducted by Dr. Stan Weed of the Institute for Research and Evaluation in Salt Lake City. It shows why abstinence is the most successful method of preventing physical and emotional complications resulting from pre-marital sexual activity.


http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jun/07061304.html

Last April, the Heritage Foundation also released a detailed on Abstinence education saying it's  "crucial to the physical and psycho-emotional well-being of the nation's youth,".

The report, "Abstinence Education: Assessing the Evidence", examined 21 studies of abstinence education programs, and concludes that statistics show that abstinence programs are effective in deterring teens from becoming sexually active, thereby reducing the risk of STDs, teen pregnancy, etc.

The Heritage Foundation authors, Christin C. Kim and Robert Rector, demonstrate that a majority of abstinence programs have reported a statistically significant decrease in levels of sexual activity for students who participate in them.

Of 15 sex-ed programs that primarily taught abstinence, 11 reported positive findings, while of 6 "virginity pledge" programs, 5 reported positive findings.

One abstinence program, Reasons of the Heart, reported that only 9.2 percent of virgins who went through the program were sexually active a year later, compared with 16.4 percent of those virginal teens who didn't go through the program.

Another program, called Heritage Keepers, reported, "One year after the program, 14.5 percent of Heritage Keepers students had become sexually active compared with 26.5 percent of the comparison group," making students from the abstinence program about half as likely to become sexually active as those not in the program.

A third program, Best Friends, found that "Best Friends girls were nearly 6.5 times more likely to abstain from sexual activity" than those not in the program. It was also found out, "They were 2.4 times more likely to abstain from smoking, 8.1 times more likely to abstain from illegal drug use, and 1.9 times more likely to abstain from alcohol."

Abstinence programs, observes the report, are admirable in that they are not only about sexual behavior, but "also provide youths with valuable life and decision-making skills that lay the foundation for personal responsibility and developing healthy relationships and marriages later in life."

The report complains that while an enormous amount of effort is being put into teaching "comprehensive" sexual education, very little effort is put into teaching abstinence. "Today's young people face strong peer pressure to engage in risky behavior and must navigate media and popular culture that endorse and even glamorize permissiveness and casual sex," write Kim and Rector. "Alarmingly, the government implicitly supports these messages by spending over $1 billion each year promoting contraception and safe-sex education - 12 times what it spends on abstinence education."

Instead, says the report, "In the classroom, the prevailing mentality often condones teen sexual activity as long as youths use contraceptives. Abstinence is usually mentioned only in passing, if at all."

The Heritage Foundation's report concludes urging that, "When considering federal funding for abstinence education programs and reauthorization of Title V abstinence education programs, including maintaining the current definition of 'abstinence education,' lawmakers should consider all of the available empirical evidence."

To read the Heritage Foundation report, see:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1897.cfm

Classroom sex ed programs really got underway in 1970 right after Congress passed its Title X funding program. They were established under the general Health curriculum.  It wasn't long after that Alan Guttmacher told supporters that in order to achieve "the perfect contracepting society" Planned Parenthood in addition to offering contraceptive products, would have to establish "contraceptive education for all youth so that at the approprieate time in thier lives contraception will be accepted as naturally as breathing."  Then came Roe v Wade in 1973.  And thus a whole new ball game as far as sex ed was concerned...general health education became  "reproductive health education" and all the sex educaiton programs are nothing other than marketing programs designed to sell sex to kids. Granted they aren't in all schools across the nation, but they are working on it.

Guttmacher told the Washington Star newspaper, "Then how can the Supreme Court decision be absloutely secured? The answer to winning the battle for elective abortion once and for all is sex education." And there it is...straight from the horse's mouth, sex ed is all about selling birth control products to children and indoctrinating them that when it doesn't work, abortion does.         

now here we have common ground El-D.  But I don't think you understand where we're coming from.  Lula and I have had teens go thru HS.  We know what they're teaching and abstinence is NOT hardly mentioned at all.  I think partly because now there seems to be an invisible line drawn that says that you have to be on one side or the other. 

Because of the either not mentioned or hardly mentioned abstinence in the sex-ed programs across the country, parents like me were/are taking their kids out of the program altogether. 

I've already covered this when I said there are those girls who think they're safe with the pill and then have sex with whomever making themselves very vulnerable to STD's.  Kids tend to be very gullible and have a hard time thinking they would be contracting anything like an STD from a nice kid they met in class or maybe knew their whole lives.  They never think it'll happen to them. 

Basically anyone who is sexually active especially with mulitple partners is at a higher risk for an STD.  A kid taught abstinence is much more likely to wait longer before their first sexual encounter and we all know that one who practices abstinence is 100% safe.  And just because they are taught abstinence doesn't mean they don't have a clue about BC. 

El-D you keep assuming or insinuating that one taught abstinence is an idiot when it comes to BC. 

Well it depends on who you're speaking to.  My belief is we are to teach our kids to abstain because morally speaking it's the right thing to do.  Physically it's the right thing to do. Emotionally it's the right thing to do and spiritually it's the right thing to do. 

For some the entire point is to sexualize our kids because there's a great financial reward to be gained.  For the most part,  our kids have the highest amount of disposable income than anybody.  When you put teens and sex together there's gold in them thar hills and the PP clinics and such know exactly what they're doing.   Cell phone companies do the same thing.  Go to the kids.  It's a huge market.