While watching “American Idol,” a commercial came on that caught my attention. An amateurish-looking home video showed two giddy, laughing teenage girls jumping on a trampoline, acting goofy. Then a voiceover said:

“I love my life. I’m not gonna mess it up with a pregnancy.”

And a web site flashed on the screen: Stayteen.org.

Being the abortion abolitionist I am, I immediately opened my laptop to check it out. At first, I was pleasantly surprised. The web site, which is funded by a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families, strongly advised waiting to have sex.

Among the various messages were myths about sex, lists of compelling reasons why abstinence is best and even a mention of how TV and movies portray sex as having no repercussions. In addition, they impressively differentiated between lust and love, and recognized the physical and emotional consequences attached to sex.

According to their bullet points, not everybody is doing it. Nearly 70 percent of teens wish they had waited to have sex and 94 percent want a strong abstinence message.

But, as I expected, that was the end of the good news. After leaving the “abstinence” section and perusing the rest of the site, I came upon the “help and advice” section. Who took the top spot under the first three resource topics?

Planned Parenthood.

Yes, that bastion of abortion, libertine sex (for the young and old) and the undermining of parents and purity. To appease parents and the general public, Planned Parenthood occasionally uses the word abstinence in their propaganda. But when mentioned, it is nearly always followed with a “but” and some nonsense about realizing how unrealistic it is; thus undermining the whole purpose of promoting it. 

It’s disturbingly contradictory for a web site that claims to want to prevent teen pregnancy and promote abstinence to send young people to Planned Parenthood for questions about “sex, protection, contraception…STDs…[and] emergency contraception.”

Once again, our government (and whoever else was involved in this site) fails to grasp the mixed messages they are sending to kids when they view such a web site.

A show like “American Idol” is watched by families with kids of varying ages. Many of them will visit StayTeen.org because of the captivating commercial. Unfortunately, the site perpetuates the false message that “abstinence is good, but since it’s probably not realistic, use contraception.” Until parents start consistently teaching their children and teens lifelong chastity, the rates of teen pregnancy, STDs and premarital sex at younger and younger ages will continue to rise.

No amount of confusing web sites will change the statistics.

Source:  OpposingViews.com

Tue, Mar. 02 2010

By Ethan Cole

A campus atheist group began its attention-seeking holy book-for-porn program on Monday at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

For three days, members of Atheist Agenda will give students pornographic magazines in exchange for any religious texts as part of their annual “Smut for Smut” campaign. Leaders of the atheist group argue that religious books contain violence, spark religious wars, advocate for the mistreatment of women and are therefore no better than pornography.

“It’s a First Amendment right,” said Bradley Lewis, 18, who plans to join the Atheist Agenda, according to the San Antonio Express-News. “If religious groups can put out missionaries and go knock on my door and wake me up at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning, I can put a table outside of the college.”

As expected, the group’s action has offended religious students. A group of Christians gathered to protest the event and in the afternoon a Christian student debated the Atheist Agenda president, Carlos Morales.

The event attracted hundreds of students to the university’s main plaza Monday. Some of the students were seen carrying signs with messages such as, “Jesus Saves” and “Jesus loves the Atheist Agenda,” while others sang hymns, according to the UTSA student newspaper The Paisano.

Robin Lorkovic, 18, who held the sign, “God Loves You! Keep your Bible and learn from it!,” said, “I don’t really feel like that is appropriate at all,” according to the Express-News.

“I am a Christian, I believe in God’s love and I am here to stand my ground and stand up for what I believe in.”

University officials admit that the atheist event is controversial and the majority of students do not agree with it. But they also said the event is legal and students have the right to freedom of speech and assembly.

“They (Atheist Agenda) admitted it’s a publicity stunt,” said Michelle Brossart, a UTSA student who is offended by the event, to The Paisano. “They want to evoke crazy emotions out of people because they want to make their agenda known.”

“But only very, very few people are actually gaining anything from this,” she said.

Atheist Agenda began the “Smut for Smut” campaign at UTSA in 2005. The first campaign gained major media attention across the nation. Subsequent events have also attracted national coverage, but to a lesser extent.

Predators must be punished, but what about good kids who make a bad decision?

By Emily Bazelon

A teenager in Wisconsin named Anthony Stancl set up a fake Facebook profile, pretending to be a girl. Seventeen or 18 at the time, Stancl used the profile to lure 30 of the boys he went to high school with to send him nude pictures or videos of themselves. Then Stancl threatened to post the material on the Internet unless they performed sex acts with him. Seven of them say they did—and that Stancl took pictures of them with his cell-phone camera.Last week, Stancl was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to repeated sexual assault of a child. This is the kind of lurid sexting story that gets the prosecutorial blood flowing. But if Stancl is at the scary end of the teen sexting spectrum, at the other end are a 12-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl in Valparaiso, Ind., who reportedly exchanged nude photos of themselves. The kids were in school when they were caught in this new form of “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.” When a teacher confronted the girl, she started to cry. What’s the best way to handle an incident like this? Should the police and prosecutors be involved, or should schools and parents handle the fallout? How can states draft laws that protect against Anthony Stancl without sweeping in more innocent behavior, like that of the students in Valparaiso?

These questions are popping up around the country. And while there’s no consensus yet about the right legislative response, the wrong one is starting to become clear. Increasingly, district attorneys agree with children’s advocacy groups that hard-charging laws and prosecutions can do real damage. They can land teens on sex offender lists for decades. And they can backfire, harming kids instead of protecting them. For example, a sexting crackdown could give a guy who talked his girlfriend into texting him a nude photo a means of threatening her—he says he’ll go to the police with the photo she sent unless she has sex with him. The harder question is whether law enforcement has any role at all to play when sexting doesn’t lead to a worse crime like the one committed by the predatory Anthony Stancl.

Consider another case, in which prosecutors went after an 18-year-old for sexting by charging him with the dissemination of child pornography. Phillip Alpert e-mailed a smutty picture of his ex-girlfriend, which she’d sent him when they were together, to more than 70 people. She was 16. He is now a registered sex offender, required to stay on that list in Florida until he is 43. That means reporting not just changes of address but also e-mail addresses and instant-messaging names.

Is this harsh but fair—or way too heavy-handed? The states that have weighed in so far are split. In a bill passed last year, Vermont shielded teens from criminal prosecution for sexting. Illinois, by contrast, created a specific misdemeanor offense for putting a nude picture on the Internet without consent and did not exempt teens. Utah and Ohio took a middle road, passing bills in 2009 that create separate juvenile misdemeanor offenses for teens who send sexts. This means they won’t be prosecuted as adults.

But it could also mean that they’re more likely to be caught up in the juvenile justice system. The 12-year-old and 13-year-old in Indiana who sent pictures to each other haven’t been criminally charged, despite a misleading headline in the local paper that naturally found its way into the blogosphere via the Huffington Post. Still, the kids were sent to juvenile probation, according to prosecutor Brian Gensel. This means a preliminary inquiry in which juvenile probation authorities make an appointment to meet with the kids and their families. The law-enforcement part of the affair could end there, or the kids could be deemed delinquent and sent for counseling or punished.

Is juvenile court the best place to handle this kind of relatively innocent behavior? Or is discipline for kids in a situation like this better left to their parents and, perhaps, their schools? The ACLU and the Juvenile Law Center argue against bringing these cases in juvenile court in a brief for a Pennsylvania sexting case that’s before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. A juvenile record “may hinder a juvenile’s future plans to seek higher education, obtain employment, or enlist in the military,” the groups argue. They oppose a Pennsylvania bill that would treat teen sexting as a misdemeanor rather than a felony on the grounds that it will do more harm than good.

This is where the child advocates and the National District Attorneys Association part company, to a degree. “If you have two consenting teens who make a mistake in sending a compromising photo to another person, that’s something you don’t want to prosecute,” the NDAA’s Justin Fitzsimmons says. But in terms of the underlying statute: “We’re in favor of having state prosecutors have the discretion to charge it as a juvenile or not charge it at all.” It’s a subtle but important difference: Give prosecutors the discretion to charge sexting as a juvenile offense and trust them to use it wisely—or don’t give them this new tool for fear it will be misused and a lot of more or less good kids will end up with a record.

The argument against sending all those teen sexters to juvenile court is that at the moment what they’re doing is a weird form of “everyone’s doing it.” Polls show that upward of 15 percent or 20 percent of teens saying they’ve received or (less often) sent a suggestive picture. A lot of kids don’t seem to understand yet that sexts are like digital tattoos—that you can’t make them go away, however hard you scrub, and so you are stuck with them. Parents and teachers and anyone else with a megaphone surely have more work to do to impress on kids that it is the opposite of wise to send into the ether a compromising photo of yourself—or anyone else. But does it make sense to criminalize behavior—even if it’s by moving teens into juvenile proceedings—when so many kids are doing it?

Maybe not, especially when some kids see it, however misguidedly, as fun. Psychologist Christopher Ferguson of Texas A&M International University surveyed Hispanic women between the ages of 16 and 30 and found that “the majority were not being coerced. They viewed this as flirty and fun, as exciting,” he says. This doesn’t cancel out the problem of the girl who inadvertently gives her ex-boyfriend a weapon to blackmail her with, as Nancy Willard of the Center for Safe Internet Use worries in this report. But it complicates the picture. In the end, teen sexting is like teen sex. Some of it is scary and assaultive and some of it is more like spin the bottle—stupid, maybe, but pretty innocent, even if alarming in its permanence.

If all of this seems too tricky and nuanced for legislators or prosecutors—or parents—to get right anytime soon, Ferguson offers some reassurance. “You know, I don’t think adults realize it, but kids today are doing well for the most part,” he says. “We’ve been keeping consistent records in the U.S. since the 1960s, and they show that teens now are less violent, use drugs less, smoke less, and drink less. They stay in school more and take more AP classes. Their suicide rate is lower, and so is the teen pregnancy rate.” (There was a slight uptick in teen pregnancy in 2006, the latest year reported, but that was from a 30-year low.) Amid all the fear about sexting, it’s good to know that kids aren’t in dire trouble, relatively speaking. Too many of them have digital tattoos. But they’re in better shape than a lot of their parents were at the same age.

Source:  Slate.com

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2246371/

The conference is sponsored by the usuals, Planned Parenthood, National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, MTV and apparently the Condom Man. 

Ironically, it was National Campaign that hosted an informational conference call about the new Teen Pregnancy Prevention funding from the White House.  The same funding that will be replacing abstinence funding.

Hmmm…wonder if that will be abstinence friendly?

By Dr. Allen Unruh

In the state of Iowa a Judge ruled that it is legal for a drunk minor to be led to a stage in a strip club in front of a bunch of drunk men and strip because according to his opinion and the way the laws are written in Iowa it’s nothing more than an expression of art. The same rule would apply to a 9 year old or anyone.

An ounce of common sense would cause anybody to rule against this nonsense.  We are being desensitized to the reprehensible.  Too many judges think they are thinking, when they are really out to lunch.  Nothing is harder for them to see than the naked truth.  If their eyes have blinders on, they won’t see the writing on the wall.  Vices are learned without a master.     

For too long the subject of sex has been left to playboy philosophers, pornographers, perverts, and powerful people without principle.  It’s time this subject is approached by parents, and preachers, and people of principle.  Christians often meet, greet, eat and retreat.  It’s time we come out of the closet, because in times of moral crisis, silence is not golden,  IT’S YELLOW!     

Character development is the great, if not the sole aim of education.  John Adams said, “Freedom without virtue is madness.”   A person’s character is his fate.  Character is revealed by your actions in an unguarded moment.   Character is the result of 1000’s of small daily strivings.  Blaming your faults upon nature does not change the nature of your faults.  If a man finds his politics and religion don’t mix, there is something wrong with his politics.   Anything that is morally wrong cannot be politically correct.   

We are changing our moral code to match our behavior rather than trying to change our behavior to meet a fixed moral code.  Sometimes the cream in our society needs a little whipping.   Who so neglects learning in his youth,  loses the past and is dead for the future.   

It appears that law school nowadays is the opposite of sex.  Even when it’s good, it’s lousy.  If you can’t be a good example, at least try to be a horrible warning.  The legacy of Tiger Woods should be a warning to young people everywhere where that road will eventually lead.    

It’s time Christians draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough.  It’s time we stand up in righteous indignation.  It’s time we clean out the cesspool and start planting some flowers.  We’ve reached the stomach turning point in America.  Young people may be 25% of the population, but they are 100% of the future.  Thoughts are the seeds of action.  It’s time we raise the standard.  For the very future of freedom and civilization are at stake if we don’t.  I challenge everyone to call the legislators in Iowa, to write to this judge.  To find out what it will take to restore moral sanity to the culture right here in the heartland.  

I note with interest that Reuters interviewed representatives of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research wing of Planned Parenthood. “Its all the fault of those Big Bad Social Conservatives.”  Oddly enough, Reuters did not interview anyone from the abstinence education movement. I wonder why? Perhaps they dont’ know where to find Leslee Unruh at the Abstinence Clearinghouse. I guess they have never heard of David Mahan, hip, urban African-American married father, who gives inspiring, dynamic presentations through his organization, Frontline Youth Communications. Maybe Reuters doesn’t know about Luis Galdamez, Hispanic Abstinence Educator in Southern California and beyond.  Perhaps Reuters is unaware that many African Americans and Hispanics are involved in the Abstinence Eduation movement, precisely because they have seen first hand in their own communities, that early sexual activity creates problems that contraception cannot solve.

Maybe you can help Reuters. Go and post links to these groups, in the comments section of the Reuters article where it appears in your newspaper. Maybe, the next Reuters story on this subject won’t sounds so much like a Planned Parenthood press release.

Better yet, remember Leslee and David and Luis when your group plans its next event.

By Jennifer Roback Morse

Source:Ruth Institute Blog

I am so thankful to learn that starting yesterday, YouTube is adding a parental control that enables parents to block their children from viewing such videos; this feature is called Safety Mode.

 Go to this link to read all about it:

 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/10/earlyshow/leisure/gamesgadgetsgizmos/main6193508.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionsArea.4    

 Source:  CBS Early Show.com

Recently we received a report from The Abstinence Kenya Forum, “Upholding the Youth’s Dignity” held on January 9, 2010.  Here is a synopsis of this report:

The participants of the forum were invited by Abstinence Kenya by virtue of being in the category of ‘youth’.  They were drawn from different parts of Nairobi, Kenya.  While most of those attending were members of Abstinence Kenya, other participants were friends of Abstinence Kenya.

According to attendance and participation, the forum was a success.   There was much discussion on how it is possible for a male and a female in a relationship to abstain from sex until marriage.

Some of the brief points brought out and discussed during the forum were:

            Factors contributing to pre-marital sex:

·        Media influence

·        Technology

·        Curiosity

·        Peer Pressure

Ways of promoting Abstinence

·        Know the importance of Abstinence

·        Develop mind control (for sex is in the mind)

·        Be busy (avoid idleness)

·        Define boundaries in relationships

·        Avoid bad company

It was concluded that Abstinence might be hard for a young unmarried couple but it is possible if the young people are exposed to pro-abstinence information and activities. If the young people develop a purpose in their lives, they would be able to define the kind of relationship they wanted to be in and thus they would understand the importance of abstaining from premarital sex.

NOTE:  Abstinence Kenya is a youth friendly non-governmental organization which was established in the year 2008 with the main objective being: Empower and enlighten the youth and the community in general as to create a better & informed youth on the importance to abstain from pre-marital sex and drug abuse.”  Since then, the organization has bee implementing different programs aimed to achieve Abstinence from pre-marital sex and drug/substance use and abuse.

Bring Keith Deltano in to perform dynamic life changing school assemblies!

For more information on Keith Deltano go to  www.VirginityRocks.com

This mom is not buying Planned Parenthood’s B.S. for one minute.

Homeschool Mom: Planned Parenthood has decreed that 10-year-olds have a fundamental right to be taught about contraception, to have comprehensive sex education, and also to be treated as sexual beings. It’s their right, right? Now, I’m sure I’m not alone here in thinking that this is the most ridiculous thing I have read in a long time. But the scary thing is, some of you will absolutely agree with Planned Parenthood — and those of you who do are probably not all pedophiles (who right now are rubbing their sweaty palms together in glee). Some of you just are misguided enough to think, “Kids are ‘doing it’ younger anyway, so why not prepare them for it?” I’ll tell you why: Because it’s not safe — emotionally, physically or morally. It is not acceptable or beneficial in any way, shape or form for 10-year-olds — or 14-year-olds, for that matter — to be having sex.

I hear all the time that abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work. People say there’s been a rise in teen pregnancies, etc., and that abstinence-only sex ed is the reason why. “Look,” they say, “Bristol Palin got pregnant, and she says abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work.” Well, I just want to point you all to a little study that says abstinence-only sex ed  is not the complete failure that people paint it to be. The study appears in the current issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, and on Feb. 2, 2010, Ashley Hayes wrote about it on CNN.com. Hayes’ piece reports that the study was conducted over a two-year period with African-American girls who averaged about 12 years in age. Two thirds of the girls who received abstinence-only sex education delayed having sexual intercourse within the two year period, while almost half the girls who received either abstinence-and-condom education or just condom education had intercourse in that same two-year span. So: Can you delay first-time sexual intercourse? It appears that you can. Can you make teen sex obsolete? Probably not — but you can’t make a lot of social problems obsolete. You can definitely make them less prevalent, though.

I believe that parents actively telling their kids “Don’t have sex” goes a long way. It’s the same with drug use: What’s the biggest deterrent? Parents saying, “Don’t do drugs.” But telling a kid, “Well, having sex is normal when you’re 14 or 12 or even 10 — so use this and be safe” doesn’t strike me as a way to curtail the unwanted behavior. Teen pregnancy is on the rise, along with sexually transmitted diseases — and so is drug use, teen violence and teen suicide. So where does all that leave us? Do we say, “Well, let’s teach them to use drugs safely,” or “Let’s teach them to kill themselves less lethally,” or “Let’s teach them to beat the snot out of each other in a safer way”? No. We say, “That is unacceptable and we don’t want you to use drugs or kill yourself or hurt someone else.”

So why is it so bad to say, “Don’t have sex until you are in a committed, adult, legally binding relationship — or at the very least, older”? I have a 14-year-old son who recently entered a private full-time high school, and I have told him, “You may not date until you are older.” I informed him that while I cannot control his liking a girl or spending time in school with a girl he feels romantically attached to, I will not aid and abet any kind of romantic relationship. She is not coming over, he’s not going to her house, there will be no movies, etc. I’m just not going there.

To a 14-year-old boy, girls are only a source of distraction and trouble — so my son’s pretty cool with my rule. His friends who do date have proven to him that I’m not talking smack. In fact, he has advised them, “You’re better off waiting” — because he has seen the drama that accompanies young teen romantic relationships. Maybe he won’t wait until he’s married to have sex. (I’d like him to, because I have seen couples in my church who did wait, and who now have extremely fulfilling and wonderful marriages.) But at the very least, I’d like to keep him safe while he’s 14. I am not ready to give up the battle, as Planned Parenthood would like me to. We may not be able to eliminate teen sex, but maybe we can delay it — and that is an improvement.

By Pam Heilman

Source:  MomLogic.com

That helps explain why the National Organization for Women and other feminist groups have vehemently opposed abstinence education while failing to notice that a culture of casual sex hasn’t been so liberating for women.

Just ask the 29-year-old Briton living in America whose anonymous account appeared in her country’s left-wing Guardian newspaper.

“(M)y sexual liberation was perversely trapping me in destructive relationships, while intimacy had become something elusive, insubstantial, disappointing, surreal,” she writes.

Weary of a “burlesque comedy where we all pretended we were emotionless and cool,” she decided to stop having sex because “I wanted sex to be, quite simply, special again.”

Similar world-weary statements have been recorded by researchers such as Dr. Miriam Grossman, author of “Unprotected,” and Laura Sessions Stepp, author of “Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both.”

Only a third of young women say they truly wanted to have sex the first time they did, Stepp reports. Young women, she writes, “are trying to make sense of what is arguably the most confusing sexual landscape any generation has ever faced.”

Most sex education pushes young women into this jungle and tells them contraception will provide adequate protection. This puts incredible pressure on those who have the most at risk in the casual-sex scene. And it jeopardizes their dreams of long-term security and love.

The vast majority of young women say marriage and motherhood are important to future happiness. Why wouldn’t we equip young women to achieve those dreams while avoiding such consequences as sexual assault and serious disease _ to say nothing of bewildering heartache? Why not teach young women the real facts about the risks of early sexual activity?

Teen girls who engage in sex are more vulnerable to sexually transmitted disease and depression. Girls who are sexually active in high school are half as likely to go on to college as abstaining peers from the same social setting. Later, they often have more difficulty in forging the kind of lasting relationships that lead to marriage.

Why not help young women make social choices that advance their long-term educational, vocational and marriage prospects? What about teaching tactics for resisting unwanted sexual advances? How about helping girls build relational and communication skills that will allow them to get what they really want _ lasting love?

This common-sense approach is exactly what abstinence education seeks to do. Contrary to its detractors’ caricature, abstinence education aims to empower young people _ especially young women _ with the information, skills and long-term perspective they need to successfully navigate what Stepp calls today’s “confusing sexual landscape.”

New evidence says this approach is helping girls do exactly that.

A study by University of Pennsylvania researchers released Feb. 2 found abstinence education is effective in delaying the onset of teen sexual activity. After eight hours of instruction on abstinence, middle school students were one-third less likely to engage in sexual activity compared to their peers. This effect persisted two years after they attended the class.

By contrast, the study found both “safe sex” and “comprehensive sex-ed” programs ineffective. The former promote only use of contraceptives; the latter teach abstinence and contraception.

Published in the American Medical Association’s Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, the Penn study used a randomized controlled experiment. The approach, designed to produce unbiased results, is considered the gold standard in program evaluation.

This is the most sophisticated evaluation showing abstinence education’s positive results, but it’s not the first. A 2008 research paper from The Heritage Foundation catalogued 15 scientific studies of abstinence education, 11 of which found positive effects.

On the same day the Penn researchers’ study came out, President Obama released his 2011 budget proposal. It zeroes out funding for abstinence education while creating a $179 million comprehensive sex-ed program _ the very kind the Penn study shows to be ineffective. Add that to more than $600 million a year already spent by the Department of Health and Human Services on pregnancy and STD prevention programs and “family planning” services for teens.

The Obama administration’s plans not only fly in the face of the research, they ignore the real needs of young women. Teen girls say they want to hear the abstinence message. More and more young women who have braved the casual-sex culture say they still haven’t found what they’re looking for.

If we want to empower these women, let’s teach abstinence.

___

ABOUT THE WRITER

Jennifer A. Marshall is director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation and author of “Now and Not Yet: Making Sense of Single Life in the Twenty-First Century.” 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:  California Chronicle.com

by Gary Dickson — Publisher

Updated: 02/12/2010 05:37:25 PM PST

Last May I read a story on the Poynter Institute’s Web site that had been in the Washington Guardian’s U.K. editon. The headline was, “Obama to scrap funding for abstinence-only programmes.” The sub-headline stated, “U.S. president proposes a new $110 million plan to help teens avoid pregnancy.” I printed the story because I just had an intuitive feeling that I might be able to use some of the articles’s information in a future column. Well, that day has arrived.

According to Neil Cole, the founder of the Candie’s Foundation, “Teen pregnancy is an epidemic. It is staggering that almost 750,000 American teens will become pregnant this year.” The Candie’s Foundation goal is to provide teens with information about the impacts of teen parenthood.

President Obama and his administration must have been convinced that it was best to attempt to reduce the U.S. teen pregnancy problem by providing condoms and birth control pills than to teach abstinence, so the president eliminated more that $150 million from abstinence programs and has now promised to pour $114 million into methods that had been “shown scientifically to work.”

One of the unfortunate issues about the president’s decision was that it was made before the results of any major, long-term study of abstinence programs had been released to the public. Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported on a recently completed research project that provided some startling information concerning the success of programs that teach teens that sexual activity abstinence is a good way to go until they are ready for a meaningful sexual relationship.

A Washington Post story called the research “a first-of-its-kind landmark study.” The research indicated that only about one-third of sixth- and seventh-graders who went through a course focused on abstinence from sexual activity started having sex during the next two years. On the other hand, nearly half of the students who went through the other type of classes, involving sex education and the usage of condoms and birth control pills, became sexually active within the next two years.

According to Sarah Brown, the director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, “This new study is game-changing. For the first time, there is strong evidence that an abstinence-only intervention can help very young teens delay sex and reduce their recent sexual activity as well.”

I think some of the abstinence-only programs have been criticized by some people for being considered to be religion-based, or due to being based on a plan to completely avoid sex until marriage. The program involved in the new study was neither. It was reported that “The program did not advocate abstinence until marriage, did not portray sex in a negative light or suggest condoms are ineffective, and contained only medically accurate information.”

I certainly don’t see anything wrong with teaching youngsters that it is best to wait longer before becoming sexually active. Research indicates that, on average, American kids are becoming sexually active earlier than at any time in the past. This is causing more unplanned, less-wanted children, interfering with the education of many teens and causing more children to be raised in poverty.

It would be naïve to think that any administration would change its program funding based on one study. I am just hopeful that additional research will be accomplished and provide positive results. With the magnitude of the national teen pregnancy problem, I don’t believe that we should place all of our hope on a single type of program, especially one that, in effect, actually sends a message to teens that sexual activity is OK, just practice safe sex so you don’t wind up being a teen mom or dad.

Gary Dickson is the editor and publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. E-mail him at gdickson@record-bee.com.

Washington, DC – Tomorrow, young people in America and around the world are beginning Valentine’s celebrations by committing to sexual purity and encouraging their peers on the value of purity. This is the seventh annual Day of Purity, which helps educate youth to remain sexually pure until marriage. Young people are actively promoting this choice of purity by wearing Day of Purity T-shirts and LivePure wristbands, handing out flyers, and organizing events in their schools, communities and churches. Liberty University, the world’s largest Christian university, will spend time celebrating the Day of Purity with the entire student body in a campus-wide gathering.

The Day of Purity is designed to raise awareness about the dangers of promiscuous behavior. Statistics show that every day, 24,000 Americans ages 15 to 24 contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD); that’s one every four seconds. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are 19 million new STD cases every year in America, and half of those occur among teens. A study released this month showed that abstinence-only education was the most effective way to reduce sexual activity. It reduced sexual activity from half to one-third in young teens. A Rasmussen poll this week showed that 50% of Americans believe that abstinence-only education helps prevent teen pregnancy. Eighty percent believe it is the parents’ responsibility to teach their children about sex, and three out of four Americans believe that “pop culture such as movies and television shows encourage sexual activity among young people.”

Students who embrace the purity lifestyle are countering the Hollywood culture with its risqué television shows, vulgar jokes, tasteless commercials, graphic movies and descriptive magazines. They are inundated at school, on television and on the internet with messages that lust and exploration are normal, even healthy, and that they should give up traditional moral values. On February 12, 2010, thousands of students will rebel against the popular culture and celebrate the Day of Purity.

Day of Purity is a project of Liberty Counsel that offers participants a planning manual, wristbands, T-shirts, informative flyers, and other resources on our website, www.DayOfPurity.org. Day of Purity has a fan page on Facebook and also recommends the Truth for Youth Bible, which contains information and stories geared for teens.

Amber Haskew, Coordinator for the Day of Purity, commented, “The heartache surrounding the tragedy of sexual promiscuity demands that we offer clear moral guidance and encouragement for our youth to stay sexually pure until marriage. The consequences of sexually transmitted diseases in our nation’s youth are devastating, and abstinence is the only effective action. It is time to take a stand against behaviors that cause disease and death. Youth who have already engaged in sexual activity can make a fresh start on the Day of Purity. Young people are ready to send a positive message to their friends, parents, churches, communities, legislators, and the media. It’s time for a positive change in our culture.”

Feb 10th 2010 11:00AM

Let’s face it. Polls and studies can be easily manipulated. In Amy Hatch’s recent column, “Abstinence Education to Blame for Rise in Teen Pregnancy Rates,”she cited a study by the Guttmacher Institute that concluded that pregnancy rates rose as a result of abstinence programs.

This month, the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine released a study that contradicts those findings. The APAM study on 662 African American 7^th and 8^th graders found that those enrolled in abstinence-only programs were less likely to engage in sexual activity.

Instead of arguing over whose poll is right, I propose we consider something most parents can probably agree on: Abstinent teens are happier and more likely to succeed in school.
Do moms and dads really need a study to tell them that teens who abstain from sex until at least the age of 18 are more likely to go to and finish college? Plenty of studies confirm this, but we also know from our own observations in high school that teen sex and high academic achievement are rarely compatible.

Sex is a powerful force that intensifies emotions and attachments. It can make a high school breakup feel more like a mini divorce. Now imagine doing that a couple times over a four-year period. No wonder sexually active teens report higher incidences of depression.

Homework, SAT scores and resume-building service projects can easily take a backseat to worries about adult-oriented trivialities like sexy lingerie or the far more distracting pregnancy or STD scare. After all, no contraception is as full proof as abstinence. Needless to say, none of this is conducive to being academically focused. Plus, common sense tell us that the parent of a sexually active teen weilds less influence over their child which can drastically impact their decisions and the course of their future.

The same way we warn our kids about the dangers of smoking (as opposed to giving them filters for their cigs), adults ought to discourage rather than enable teens to have sex at a time when so much of their future is at stake. Kids deserve to be told the truth about the academic, economic (college graduates earn nearly half a million dollars more than nongraduates over a lifetime), and emotional tradeoffs of high school sex — even if they don’t always heed our advice.

Neurologists tell us that the teenage brain is not fully developed or able to processes consequences, which is why some teens will have sex despite our admonitions and well-intentioned abstinence programs. But this knife cuts both ways. Their underdeveloped brains are also the reason why they are notoriously poor practitioners of contraception despite having condoms and birth control pills practically thrown at them in schools.

President Obama recently eliminated abstinence education in schools and now we learn that Planned Parenthood International is pushing intensive sex education for children as young as 10 (which includes discussions on the “pleasures of sex”).. But we sell our kids short when we allow the culture, vested organizations like Planned Parenthood, and government bureaucrats to send them the message that pregnancy and STDs are the only consequences of teen sex that they need to be concerned about. As parents, we cannot lose sight of our primary objective: to raise happy (and yes, moral) kids and to maximize their opportunity to succeed in life. When that is the goal, abstinence education looks pretty darn good.

Source:  ParentsDish.com

Source: lifenews.com

New York, NY (LifeNews.com) – A recent Planned Parenthood report pushing sex and abortion for children is drawing more fire from pro-life advocates. Now, Catholic League president Bill Donohue is attacking the document because he says it rips Catholicism and promotes “sexual engineering” by “smearing religious conservatives, especially Catholics.”

The new report, titled Stand and Deliver,” sees the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) demanding that governments, religious institutions and society at large provide “comprehensive sexuality education” for children as young as ten years old.

According to IPPF, as “young people are sexual beings,” it should be self-evident that “sexuality education promotes individual well-being and the advancement of broader societal and public health goals.”

Naturally, once children are enabled to have sexual relations, they will eventually need the contraception, birth control and abortions that Planned Parenthood sells.

“IPPF uses the terms young people, youth and adolescents interchangeably to refer to people who are between 10 and 24,” Donohue notes in a statement sent to LifeNews.com today. “In other words, 5th graders should be treated the same way graduate students are when it comes to their ’sexual and reproductive health and rights.’”

Donohue says the entire program is based on a faulty assumption.

IPPF says that “The taboo on youth sexuality is one of the key forces driving the AIDS epidemic and high rates of teenage pregnancy and maternal mortality.”

The Catholic League president calls that “nonsense” and says: “In the 1950s, there was no sex education in the schools, the pill was not commercially available and AIDS didn’t exist. Yet the out-of-wedlock birth rate was comparatively miniscule and sexually transmitted diseases were relatively rare. All because of taboos.”

Donohue also criticizes the IPPF report’s language saying, “Fundamentalist and other religious groups—the Catholic Church and madrasas (Islamic schools) for example—have imposed tremendous barriers that prevent young people, particularly, from obtaining information and services related to sex and reproduction.”

According to IPPF, religious institutions – like the Catholic Church and Islamic schools – need to be “pragmatic” to accommodate young people as “sexual beings” and amend their teachings to “find a way of explaining and providing guidance on issues of sex and sexual relationships among young people, which supports rather than denies their experiences and needs.”

He responds: “So the kids in Sister Mary’s class who learn about responsible sex are analogous to Imam Mohammad’s kids who are either denied sex education or are told that homosexuality is punishable by death.”

Ultimately, the pro-life advocate says Planned Parenthood is putting children at risk.

“Why is it that public school students, who know so much more about sex than those dunces in the parochial schools, are precisely the ones walking around with the highest rates of illegitimacy, abortion and herpes?” he asks.

A new report by the International Planned Parenthood Federation is recommending that children as young as 10 years old receive mandatory graphic sex education, which includes teaching them the “pleasures of sex.”
 
The report, “Stand and Deliver” recommends - in fact, demands - that children as young as 10 should be seen as “sexual beings.”  Further, the report criticizes religious institutions such as Catholicism and Islam for placing tremendous barriers on the ability of young people to receive information and services related to sex and that these teachings “deny the pleasurable and positive aspects of sex.”
 
Leslee Unruh, spokesperson for the Abstinence Clearinghouse, said, “They are intentionally ignoring the role of parents in this report.  Parents have and should always be the primary sex educators of their children.  However, Planned Parenthood knows that the earlier they capture the children’s minds, the greater the odds the children will adopt their secular world view.  Further, coming from a group whose future relies on funding from failed contraception and abortions, the connection isn’t hard to make,” she said.  “This is an aggressive political agenda, meant to make Planned Parenthood a lot more money.”
 
Lastly, Unruh stated, “Early graphic sex education is a proven failed strategy that only molests the minds of the children who experience it.  We are committed to ensuring our nation’s greatest resource, our youth, is protected.  Parents, will you stand with us to prevent this sexualization of our children from happening?”
 
The Abstinence Clearinghouse, with offices in Sioux Falls, SD and Washington, DC, was built on the foundation that parents are the primary sex educators of their children.  The mission of the Abstinence Clearinghouse is to promote the appreciation for and practice of sexual abstinence until marriage through the distribution of age appropriate, factual and medically-referenced materials.

Most third and fourth graders barely know what sex is, let alone have any desire to try it. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is advocating in a new report, “Stand and Deliver.” As part of the global push, IPPF “demands” that children 10 and older have access to “comprehensive sex education” that defines sexuality as a ” positive force for change and development, as a source of pleasure, an embodiment of human rights and an expression of self.” What they neglect to mention is that this “expression of self” also leads to death, disease, teen pregnancy, and depression. Regardless, the latest research suggests that abstinence–not liberal sex ed–is the most effective approach for this age group. In the February edition of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, researchers found that a third of inner-city kids who participated in a targeted abstinence-only program were sexually active, compared to about half of their peers.

Of course, it’s no secret why IPPF would advocate for early sexual involvement. What better way to advertise for abortion than encourage young children to have sex? The most troubling part of the study is that it purposefully squeezes parents out of the equation. What children learn (or don’t learn) about intimacy SHOULD BE up to parents–not the government, and certainly not Planned Parenthood.