The Abstinence Clearinghouse Blog

 
Abstinence Advocates,
 
Check out this disturbing article - how very disappointing!  The majority of parents and youth in this country favor the abstinence until marriage message yet those opposed to it will go to any lengths to silence them.  Please speak out - let your voice be heard!


Click here to read: Obama Administration Blocks Release of Pivotal HHS Abstinence Study posted by Catherine Snow on Citizenlink.com

On August 16, I heard a discussion on one of the morning programs regarding Jennifer Aniston’s new movie, “The Switch”, and the comments by Bill O’Reilly regarding the poor message this movie and the main character are sending to teens of today.  The last comment from one of the hosts was, “Really, aren’t we making ‘much ado about nothing’.  After all, it’s just a movie.”

Unfortunately, this is the attitude of most people today.    When did it become “okay” to accept the fact that teens are going to be having sex rather than expecting them to wait until marriage? When did it become “okay” to be a pregnant teen in school rather than it being a stigma? Maybe we should have been making “much ado” about these things a long time ago and we wouldn’t see the rise in sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy today.

Now, we are to accept this movie where the main character becomes pregnant through a sperm donor as a “sign of changing times”, states Aniston.  Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the teenagers I know to believe that this is where our world is going! 

It’s time we go back to teaching our children that they can say “no”, remain pure until marriage and save having and raising children within the context of a marriage.  Let’s start making “much ado” about teaching abstinence and really parenting our children.  

Just because it has “abstinence” in the title doesn’t mean it’s what you want your child to be taught.  At an end-of-school PTO workshop at which no staff or parents were present, a sex educator offered condoms to 7^th and 8^th-graders at a New Hampshire middle school recently.  The school has apologized to parents. “I don’t think it was clear what was going to be presented,” the principal said.

(http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/723522-196/condom-distribution-draws-apology.html)

As reported in the MTV blog, Hollywood is making a movie adaption of the book The Abstinence Teacher.  They have even tentatively recruited famous actors Steve Carell and Sandra Bullock to star in leading roles. 

Making a movie about this awful book shows how threatened Hollywood is by the abstinence world-view.  How many of you have read this book?  A sex education teacher makes fun of the abstinence-until-marriage folks.  So many times people take something good and distort it – which is what the author of this book has done.  Abstinence-until-marriage should be the standard as it is both physically and emotionally healthier.  Yet for decades, Hollywood has tried to push a liberal world-view onto generations of people.  Actors become role models for our youth.  People fall for it and begin to justify their actions.  Here we are today with a push for an anything goes society.

This liberal ‘anything goes’ world-view has lead to depression, high suicide rates, increase in STDs and teen pregnancy, alcoholism, drug abuse, emotional brokenness and death. 

Well, there is something that we can do.  Don’t buy into it.  Refuse to see these movies or watch these TV shows that promote this liberal world-view.  Teach your children to value high standards and have dignity.  Let’s push back. 

Movieguide reported recently how surprised Hollywood was when big blockbuster movies did not take in the projected ticket sales and in contrast family movies like Toy Story and Karate Kid far exceeded expected sales.  Let’s continue this trend.  Demand more family movies.  Write to TV stations and tell them to raise the bar in their programming.

I heard a teen recently say “MTV treats us like we are dogs in heat, but we have news for them – we are not.”  Let’s give our children better than MTV.  We are not desperate housewives. 

Planned Parenthood of Central Texas, held their “Nobody’s Fool” event in Waco, to teach sex education to kids.  Children as young as Grade 5 (10-years-old) will be taught sex education at this “outreach” event.

Keep in mind though representatives of Planned Parenthood in Corpus Christi think that Kindergarten is a good time to start sex education.

Seriously, PP claimed in their flyer that they are going to “encourage abstinence.” http://www.prolifewaco.com/uploads/NobodysFoolFlyer2010.pdf

Right.  Who are they kidding?  Planned Parenthood supported numerous bills in 2009 that would have destroyed abstinence teaching in Texas and would have banned Texas from receiving federal funds for abstinence teaching.  Click here. http://www.educationworkstexas.org/policy.html

This sham of an event created quite the controversy in Waco/Central Texas, as common sense Texans that support Texas values are helping expose the deception of Planned Parenthood.

Source:  TexasLegislativeUpdate.com

 
“Parents in Helena are right to be upset about these proposed sex courses in their schools. Sex education is a value-laden subject, and information must be conveyed to each child at a level consistent with his or her mental maturity. Supporters of such classroom programs typically talk about presenting material that is ‘age-appropriate.’ But that criterion does not apply in this context.
 
“Because children mature at widely differing rates, one child may be ready for a great deal of information at 11 years of age or earlier, while another child, even in the same family, might not be ready for the same information until he or she is 14-years-old.
 
“School classrooms group children by the same chronological age, but they will each be at varying stages of mental maturity. In fact, the lower the grade level, the greater the disparity is among the children. It is impossible to design a classroom sex education course that is appropriate for all of the children in the class.
 
“As Dr. Melvin Anchell has pointed out for decades, the consequences of teaching sex education in elementary school are harmful and far-ranging. By introducing the subject of sex during this period of a child’s maturity process, we interfere with his natural learning abilities and his development of social qualities such as compassion.
 
“The children who are unfortunate enough to be thrust into this kind of curriculum will suffer in countless ways, both academically and socially.
 
“American Life League encourages parents in Helena to continue to oppose these programs and demand that their public schools stop these social engineering schemes and instead use teachers’ limited and valuable time to return to teaching basic academic subjects.”
 

It Doesn’t Work?  Spend More Money!

Pregnancy rates in the U.S. had been on the rise until 1993. From 1993 to 2006, pregnancy rates began to decline. In 2006, for the first time in 14 years pregnancy rates have begun going up.

• 1993 (the year the decline began) was the first year public schools introduced abstinence programs.
• In 2006 (the year the rates began to go up), the ACLU threatened lawsuits for discrimination against school districts whose sex education programs standard was “abstinence-until-marriage.”

Here’s how your tax money for sex education was spent.

• Title V began in 1994. It is currently funded at $50 million a year. This federal program gives a block of money for Abstinence Based Education to states who match every $4 with $3 from their own budget.
• Since 2006, school districts in states who accepted this money have been the target of lawsuits by the ACLU, so only about 30 states currently accept the funds.
• Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) allowed individual abstinence programs to receive federal grants without requiring the state to match funds. CBAE was defunded in 2009 by the Obama Administration.
• When all the abstinence education (ASE) money was added up in 2008, it totaled $176 million.
• When all the “comprehensive” sex education (CSE) money was added up it came to $609 million plus $27 Billion for HIV prevention programs.

Here’s the kicker: NONE of the new money can go toward Abstinence Education. Every penny of it has to go toward a “comprehensive” approach. (In government-speak that means you say abstinence is effective, but your main focus is getting teens to use condoms. Most comprehensive sex ed. programs discuss condoms over abstinence at a ratio of 7:1.)

Now, this is the REALLY funny part. TWO well-documented reports have been published showing comprehensive sex ed programs DON’T WORK!

The first was conducted by John Jemmott, PhD and published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. It showed that in head-to-head measurements, only 33% of students who received abstinence based education were sexually active 2 years later compared to 50% of students who received comprehensive sex ed (abstinence plus condoms message), “safe sex” education (condoms only) and the control group (health information with no extra emphasis on sexuality).

This study marks the first time ASE and CSE programs were evaluated side-by-side, with the same at-risk population. It came as a surprise to some people who promoted handing out all that CSE money for the last 3 decades.

The other report came from the Institute for Research and Evaluation. Unlike every other evaluator of sex education, IRE doesn’t have a dog in this hunt. They don’t create or sell sex education programs. They just look at the evidence of what they produce.

Their evaluations, over several years, in head-to-head comparisons found that:

• The CSE programs touted as “effective in reducing teen pregnancy and STDs” didn’t actually MEASURE pregnancy or infection rates at all.
• NONE of them increased consistent condom use or had an effect on delaying sexual initiation over time.
• But several studies have shown that ASE programs (the ones that just had their funding cut) are proven to be effective at delaying sexual initiation.

Remember CSE gets $609 million dollars a year vs. ASE which got $176 million per year. The programs which cost taxpayers LESS money, and are MORE effective have been eliminated. The programs which HAVEN’T worked for the last 30 years, and cost taxpayers MORE are about to get an additional $100 million dollars.

Yep, reminds you of President Regan’s old saying:

“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Source:  Positively In Control.com

By now most of you have probably heard or read about the new school policy in Provincetown, MA where students from elementary school to high school were to be able to access free condoms simply by visiting with the school nurse or counselor.  No minimum age limit, no parental permission and no parental control to opt their children out of this program.

School Superintendent Beth Singer has apologized for what she calls a “misunderstanding” over the district’s sex education policy.  However, in the beginning of this controversy, she was quoted defending the policy by saying, “The intent is to protect kids”.  Perhaps Superintendent Singer should take a look at the real truth about the effectiveness of condoms.

1. Condoms are not considered effective protection against some STD’s, especially those that spread by skin to skin contact.
2. Studies have shown that with typical use condoms have an actual failure rate of almost 15%. 
3. Condoms do not protect against all pregnancies.

Parents need to give their children the right tool.  The term “safe sex” should never be associated with condoms.  The right tool to give our children to save themselves from STD’s and unplanned pregnancies is abstinence; abstinence works every time.

This great article by Charles Donovan shows that we are winning back our kids from making risky-lifestyle choices.  Keep of the great work all of you in the abstinence education field; you are making a difference.

By CHARLES A. DONOVAN / The Heritage Foundation

Parents can find plenty of dismaying news in the latest government reports on the risky behavior and attitudes of American youth. A recent finding that one of every five teenagers has taken prescription drugs without a doctor’s order, for instance, drew appropriate attention.

But the trends in risky business on the younger side of 20 aren’t all bleak. Take this one: In any given three months, the vast majority of younger teens refrain from having sex.

The school-based Youth Behavior Risk Survey found that 65 percent of high school students said they didn’t engage in sexual intercourse over the previous three months. The National Survey of Family Growth, a more comprehensive study that includes 19-year-olds, put this “abstinent majority” at 70 percent.

If either number is higher than you expected, it’s probably because misleading cultural messages persist about sex and teenagers. In the 1990s, Fox Entertainment did its best to persuade U.S. television viewers that all teens live at an address in the neighborhood of “Beverly Hills 90210″ - and behave accordingly. MTV and VH1 contributed to the image of adolescence as a hive of continuous sexual experimentation.

There’s media gold in those Hollywood Hills, and always will be. In fact, though, teen sexual activity declined significantly over the past two decades. Besides increased abstinence, reasons include a steady, statistically significant reduction in the percentage of teens with multiple sexual partners. More partners, of course, put them at greater risk of sexually transmitted infections as well as pregnancy.

Consider the percentage of never-married teenagers who say they haven’t had sexual intercourse. For 2006-2008, the most recent period studied, the National Survey of Family Growth found that 58 percent of never-married females age 15-19 had not had sex even once. That represents a 20 percent increase since 1988 in premarital abstinence for girls. As for teen males: A higher percentage report sexual experience, but the boys show a 16 percent increase in abstinence.

Digging a little deeper uncovers other reasons to believe American teens have established a real beachhead for sexual abstinence. Among never-married girls who are sexually experienced, more than 25 percent say they haven’t had sex in three months. Among never-married boys, close to a third say the same. The circumstances are relevant too. The National Survey of Family Growth asked sexually experienced teens if they didn’t want sex when it was initiated, had mixed feelings, or welcomed it. More than half of the girls said they either didn’t want sex or had mixed feelings. So did more than 40 percent of the boys. As certain as night follows day, some teenagers resemble the comic characters in the movie “Superbad” in their obsession with ending a sexual drought. Just as clearly, others drank from this well of experience and awoke with serious hangovers.

Young people, who generally struggle with identity and “belonging” issues, are eager for meaningful human connections. It’s not just hormones. Young men and women are more than the sum of molecular attractions. They’re traveling the hazardous road between childhood comforts and adult expectations. The validation they think they could get from another person through sexual contact makes it a risk that seems worth taking.

But no “fake ID” can admit a teenage boy or girl to genuine adulthood.

That’s why society’s response to teen sexuality as merely a medical or public health phenomenon is incomplete. The abstinent alternative, in turn, must be about far more than temporarily saying “no” to sex. It must be about the transition into adult responsibilities, adult joys and, ultimately, adult character.

Earlier this year, University of Pennsylvania researchers released a model study showing that abstinence programs can be effective. The study randomly assigned some middle-school students to an eight-hour abstinence curriculum and others to sex-ed programs that included contraceptives and mixed messages. Penn researchers found that the abstinence-only offering reduced subsequent sexual activity by one-third more than other programs.

Personal relationships with teens can accomplish even more. Teen Talk, an abstinence program at Milwaukee’s Family House founded by Cordelia Taylor, a registered nurse, has had great success in a city that once had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. Of 170 participating girls, only two became pregnant. And those two spoke with authority when they returned to counsel peers on avoiding similar mistakes.

The continuing task is to help the abstinent majority stay that way as long as possible, ideally until marriage. With four of every 10 babies being born to single mothers, primarily because of a surge among 20-somethings in births outside marriage, that task is more urgent than ever. We can press on with the knowledge that an abstinent majority is looking for more encouragement, and better examples, from the adults around them.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Charles A. Donovan is a senior research fellow in the DeVos Center on Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. Readers may write to the author in care of The Heritage Foundation, 214 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Washington, D.C. 20002; Web site: www.heritage.org. Information about Heritage’s funding may be found at http://www.heritage.org/about/reports.cfm.

Source:  The Bellingham Herald.com

I believe most of us would agree that the computer age is a marvelous thing.  Simply by sitting down at our desk, we can send messages around the world, we can conduct business and financial transactions, we can socialize on the many social networks with family and friends and we can research virtually anything that we desire to know more about.  Unfortunately, the computer can also be used for purposes that aren’t virtuous as well.  

We have all heard stories about pedophiles using the social networks to communicate with and lure unsuspecting children and teens.  Now it appears they are using another online source to advance their agenda.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia at your fingertips.  However, according to a report by FoxNews.com, it is now being used by a loose worldwide network of pedophiles to spin this popular online encyclopedia in their favor.  They are linking messages board posts to specific Wikipedia articles that the participants say need to be edited to “normalize” pedophile behavior in the public eye and to recruit more pedophiles into their community.

“Pedophiles have campaigned to push their point of view that ‘pedophilia is OK and doesn’t hurt children’ on Wikipedia,” stated Xavier Von Erck, director of the online pedophile watchdog organization Perverted Justice Foundation and Wikisposure.com.

How many of our children use this popular online encyclopedia and could unknowingly follow a link to some of this material?  How many people struggling with pornography could be lured into the world of the pedophila after reading these articles?

All of us must remain vigilant as to what is happening around us and continue to monitor our children’s computer activity. 

Source:  FoxNews.com

  ^{http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/06/25/exclusive-pedophiles-find-home-on-wikipedia/}