(no subject)
Wanker. Bush lives in Crazy-land. It's f'ing official. thanks to Eiluned for tipping me off.
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/31/news-ireland.php
So, now he wants to revamp sex-ed programs to teach abstinence-only. JUST abstinence. In places where he's done that already, like Texas, AIDS/teen pregnancies are at their highest. It's just inefficient and irresponsible to only teach people to avoid it. They'll do it anyway, but they'll have no idea how to do it responsibly.
“For example, a Minnesota Department of Health study of the state’s five-year, abstinence-only program found last year that sexual activity by students taking the program actually doubled, from 5.8 percent to 12.4 percent.
A study by Columbia University Department of Sociology chairman Peter Bearman of the sex lives of 12,000 adolescents from 12 to 18 years old over a five-year period found unsafe sex much greater among youth who’d signed pledges to abstain from sex until…marriage.” [1]
The United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate of all developed countries.
About 1 million teenagers become pregnant each year; 95% of those pregnancies are unintended, and almost one third end in abortion. [2]
Cumulative Number of AIDS Cases, Reported through December 2002
Rank All Ages United States 859,000 1 New York 155,755 2 California 128,064 3 Florida 90,233 4 Texas 59,772 5 New Jersey 45,237 6 Illinois 28,426 7 Pennsylvania 28,136 8 Georgia 26,008 9 Maryland 25,358 10 Massachusetts 17,774 11 Virginia 14,959 12 District of Columbia 14,882 13 Louisiana 14,624 14 Connecticut 12,765 15 Ohio 12,733 16 Michigan 12,645 17 North Carolina 12,384 18 South Carolina 11,055 19 Washington 10,473 20 Missouri 10,006 21 Tennessee 9,924 22 Arizona 8,570 23 Colorado 7,713 24 Alabama 7,135 25 Indiana 7,003 26 Oregon 5,357 27 Mississippi 5,293 28 Nevada 4,972 29 Oklahoma 4,229 30 Minnesota 4,076 31 Kentucky 3,976 32 Wisconsin 3,952 33 Arkansas 3,393 34 Delaware 3,019 35 Hawaii 2,720 36 Kansas 2,540 37 New Mexico 2,277 38 Rhode Island 2,261 39 Utah 2,189 40 Iowa 1,498 41 West Virginia 1,262 42 Nebraska 1,237 43 Maine 1,032 44 New Hampshire 960 45 Idaho 547 46 Alaska 530 47 Vermont 442 48 Montana 359 49 Wyoming 204 50 South Dakota 203 51 North Dakota 112 Puerto Rico 27,242 Virgin Islands 575 Guam 60 Residence Unknown 841
See, Texas is 4th. [3]
oh, for the investigative
[1] http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/31/news-ireland.php
[2] Statistics from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - CDC's Reproductive Health Information Source
[3] Table 14, HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report: Cases of HIV Infection and AIDS in the United States, 2002, Volume 14, National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services, 2003. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/stats/hasr1402.htm.
(The stats were in my email)
Dear whomever reads these; I am frankly horrified that the CDC endorses such a backslide.
We need to teach about realistic prevention, instead of just weakly warning against sex. And teaching that condoms don’t work is incredibly irresponsible, when, in fact, condoms are the best defense against contracting AIDS. It’s blatant misinformation that costs lives.
So, teaching abstinence-only creates more unsafe sex, and more AIDS. Right. In Texas, where these policies have already been implemented, teen pregnancies are chaotically rising, as well as AIDS rates.
Moreover, these disturbing stats are available from the CDC. This action is completely negligent, and irresponsible. It’s akin to pouring gasoline on a raging fire. Please reconsider this policy before the AIDS pandemic becomes worse.