DriveThru – Get What You Need

The Washington Post’s On Faith blog has a great post from my colleague, Chad Hills, about new findings in the world of abstinence education.

Many politicians and educators have long since dismissed the idea that abstinence education is a healthy – or perhaps even better – alternative to comprehensive sex ed. But now a landmark study from the February 2010 Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine adds to the ever-growing evidence that abstinence education works.

Chad put it well:

If you talk to young people, a gradual change is taking place. They’re experiencing the aftermath of a sexual tsunami, and are sorting through the refuge left in the wake of sexually liberated parents. The fallout from broken, dysfunctional families is painful – a model they don’t want to replicate. Young men and women are searching for brighter futures and not so sure they want to follow the road map they’ve seen modeled and taught.

There’s a new generation waking up and willing to do things differently… and better:

Abstinence-centered education is effective with this generation because it provides direction, character education and a guide for healthy living. It gives hope for a brighter future to those regretting their sexual involvement. It encourages parents to participate in and lead this discussion.

To read Chad’s full analysis, visit the On Faith blog.

Five out of 12 major anti-family policies in the omnibus spending bill are related to funding abortions and liberalizing sex education. You can thank bill-supporting Members of Congress (House, Senate) and our President for the following “gifts” just before Christmas 2009:

• Elimination of abstinence education funds ($zero$)
• Funding for Planned Parenthood (Title X funding boost to $315M)
• Publicly funded abortions for D.C. residents in our nation’s Capitol
• U.S. funding for U.N. population control, including China’s one-child policy and subsequent abortions (U.S. Taxpayers will pay $5M more)
• International family planning – fund overseas abortions – Mexico City Policy – ($103M more)

The Heritage Foundation posted a Web article titled, “Twelve Anti-Family Gifts From Congress,” [Dec. 22, 2009],   that lists another seven egregious funds and policies passed in by Congress in the omnibus spending bill. Policies such as more funding to keep people on welfare, needle exchange, limiting free speech, ending D.C. scholarship program, domestic partner benefits for D.C. employees and legalized “medical” marijuana … “high” in a pear treeeeee …

Supporting Members of Congress voted in favor of this bill, and President Obama signed it into law. We certainly hope they enjoy all the Piggy Pudding they passed in the $1.1 Trillion Pork-nibus spending bill with more than 5,000 earmarks.

Though this battle was lost in 2009, the war is far from over in 2010.

MORE INFORMATION

• See a PDF of The Heritage Foundation’s Twelve Anti-Family Gifts From Congress … 
• See Appendix for 2010 Budget of the U.S. Government … 
• See Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010 – H.R. 3288 (omnibus spending bill) …  [PDF]

Question: Should we keep pouring taxpayer money into treating the symptoms of casual sex (like the current healthcare bill), or should we cut to the root of the problem, addressing behavior modification?

If we continue to promote – and treat symptoms of – casual sex, groups like Planned Parenthood and other “free-sex” advocates will remain self-perpetuating storms.

Their “business,” if you will, is promoting casual sex.  They work to make risky behavior acceptable and then they get paid to “fix” the problems. Sex is the goal in their agenda, and pushing condoms is their method. Symptom treatment is a vacuous black hole for healthcare funding that never ends.

Conversely, if we cut to the root of the problem by modifying culture and changing sexual behavior, taxpayers and government stand to save money. Character-based abstinence education seeks to achieve this objective.

But there’s another twist: couples are getting married later – 26 for women, 28 for men. Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project, describes how the courtship narrative in former generations was set: dating, engagement, marriage and then children. Now the narrative is disrupted by a tenuous time gap, leaving 20-somethings in a “relational wasteland.”  Some recommend earlier marriage as a solution.

Casual sex and cohabitation have not proven to be effective substitutes for the long-term stability and contentment of lifelong marriage. But they have successfully spread sexual diseases and created unplanned pregnancies. 

So, do we keep promoting casual sex, treating and repeating the symptoms? Or cut to the heart of the issue and address behavior, possibly encouraging earlier marriage?

More …
Capitol Research Center – What type of sex education really pays off?

Women are bearing the disproportionate burden of negative consequences from the “casual-sex” revolution, but a feminist group at Harvard, ironically, is upset about an increasingly popular movement that empowers both women and men to say “No” to sex. Makes you scratch your head, doesn’t it?

Consider that two of every five babies (40%) are born to unwed mothers who will likely not finish college and have to raise a child alone – at or near poverty.  Meanwhile, Biological “Dad” jumps into the sack with the next girl and the pattern continues. Another young lady’s potential is stunted and one more child goes fatherless.

Just one dorm room over, Dan Disease is sharing HPV, Chlamydia, Syphilis and possible exposure to HIV with Emily, his sixth sexual conquest this year. “Hooking up,” it’s what every sexually liberated man and woman wants, right? I’m still scratching my head.

Hmm … but could the “free-sex” model be an ill-constructed failure? Research is showing that “hook-ups” don’t satisfy and there’s more to sex than, well, just having more sex. The human brain is actually wired to have one mate for life, according to the most recent research.

Sex is more than a physical act – it’s intellectual, ethical, social, emotional and spiritual as well. Although the brain rewards humans for having sex (dopamine reward), brain chemicals are “values neutral,” in that they cannot distinguish between good, bad, healthy or unhealthy behaviors.
 
Freedom is as much the ability to choose something as it is to choose NOT to do something. If life had a rewind button, more than a few sexually active, unmarried women would choose NOT to repeat careless decisions regarding sex.

A Government-backed youth program in the United Kingdom did not reduce teenage pregnancies, by half, as promised. An independent report, published in the British Medical Journal and commissioned by the UK Department of Health, concluded that the Program only reduced teen pregnancies by 11 percent from 2004 to 2007.  And now, teen pregnancy rates are starting to climb.

The strategy has involved the expansion of comprehensive sex-education programs and the provision of contraception in schools – exactly what the U.S. intends to do with sex education in the proposed 2010 federal budget. More than 12 years have passed and the UK has seen little progress, if not the opposite of what they wanted.

Regarding United Kingdom students in the comprehensive, contraception-based ”safe-sex” program:

• Students were more likely to have sex at an earlier age than the comparison group (not enrolled in the safe-sex  program)
• More than twice the number of girls in the safe-sex program became pregnant versus the comparison group (16% v. 6%)
• More than half the students in the safe-sex program had sex before the age of 16, almost twice as many as the comparison group (56% v. 33%)

Despite millions of dollars (pounds) poured into the comprehensive, safe-sex program, Britain maintains the infamous reputation of having the worst teen pregnancy problem in Western Europe. The report concludes that there was no evidence that the scheme reduced pregnancies, delayed sex, cut cannabis use or achieved a fall in how often the teenagers got drunk compared to their peers.

“This approach undermines any attempt by parents to discourage their children from having early sexual relationships, and the consequences have been all too predictable,” according to the Telegraph article.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, the Obama Administration and House of Representatives have zeroed out abstinence education funding.

What now? The 2010 Budget plans to pour millions of dollars into comprehensive sex education programs that have already proven ineffective in Europe and have little evidence of working in the U.S.

It looks like we’re planning to spend millions treating the symptoms rather than addressing the problem. For groups like Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, Advocates for Youth, Durex condoms, et al, this should be quite lucrative, at the expense of another generation.

Truth be told, sex is not “safe” outside the context of marriage - it has consequences, even within marriage. And there has never been a condom created to protect the hearts and minds of children and young adults. We are emotional, intellectual, social and ethical beings – not merely physical commodities to be exploited for self-gratification.

Isn’t there a better way to spend taxpayers’ money and train children to a higher expected standard? Your Congressmen  are supposed to represent you, the citizen. Tell them what you think about the removal of abstinence education in exchange for contraceptive-based, “safe-sex” education in America.

Read entire Telegraph article …

MORE ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC:

Multi-million pound Government scheme ‘could have increased teen pregnancies’
 
Teenage pregnancies: a real sex scandal: The disappointing fall in teenage pregnancies is the result of a shocking failure of policy.