Like many women, I'm feeling increasingly harassed by the current administration. Since their first months in office, they've systematically turned back decades of progress in women's reproductive health, while providing jaw-dropping rationales for their policies. And it's not limited to adults. The teens are getting the party line, too. Again, from a Planned Parenthood email, with links to articles:
Abstinence-only sexuality education doesn't work. There is little evidence that teens who participate in abstinence-only programs abstain from intercourse longer than others. Despite this, President Bush promised to double federal funding of abstinence-only sex education programs in his State of the Union address this year.
When the U.S. has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the developed world, and American adolescents are contracting HIV faster than almost any other demographic group, we owe it to our children to fight for comprehensive sexuality education starting with their school boards.
As Laura Berman wrote in her recent editorial in USA Today, “We can eliminate neither the choices nor the risks inherent in our kids’ sexual development. We can, however, tackle the ignorance.�
I'm glad to hear PP discussing this not only as a health issue, but a censorship issue, as well. Limiting people's access to information is not what a free society should be about. If you feel so strongly about abstinence, create powerful, persuasive educational programs about it, to go side-by-side with ALL of the information available. It won't work on all kids, but it might on some, and then you're at least giving the rest ways to protect themselves.
One wonders if our president remembers
being a teenager? Perhaps he was too stoned at the time?
