Are you for/against Abstinence-Only-Until Marriage Programs?

[imported_Tomato]

The United States ranks 3rd WORST among developed nations in terms of the quality of their sex education practices (UK is 2nd worst, Ireland is 1st worst). The countries best-ranked are Denmark, Switzerland, etc. In Denmark, sex ed begins in kindergarten, where appropriate names for various parts of the male and female genetalia are taught to the children. I think that's wonderful, and am in full support of comprehensive education (in which everything from body parts to abstinence to birth control options to oral sex is taught and explained... if kids are gonna do it, they're gonna do it whether or not you teach them anything about it, and the more education the better... comprehensive sex ed doesn't promote sex ed and it doesn't downplay abstinence, it just provides kids with valuable, necessary information).

Here are some disturbing facts regarding the "Abstinence-Only-Until Marriage Programs", the only government/federally-funded sex ed program in the nation:

- Clinton instated the program during his presidency, allocating "Abstinence-Only-Until Marriage Programs" a budget of $50 million... during Bush's first two weeks in office, he upped the budget to $120 million, and has currently upped it to $180 million/year... $180 million of YOUR tax dollars are being spent to teach kids gems such as...

- "You can get AIDS from a towel" (this is actually printed in one of the pamphlets/books distributed to students in "Abstinence-Only-Until Marriage Programs")

- "If you have sex with somebody outside of marriage, you will be permanently psychologically damaged."

- "True love may only be found between a man and a woman."

Etc., etc.

If a teacher in any of the schools receiving funding for an "Abstinence-Only-Until Marriage Programs" even mentions homosexuality, birth control, or any sort of support for sex outside of marriage between a man an a woman, the school has its funding completely cut off for that year.

Surprise, surprise... <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://

For those of you who remember the DARE programs in high school (i.e. don't do drugs)... did that really stop any of you from experimenting? Probably not... if you're going to do drugs, you're going to do drugs, regardless of whether or not you participate in a program telling you not to. If you didn't do drugs, you wouldn't have done drugs whether or not you went through that program. The director of DARE actually resigned a few years ago and did a study following 5,000 DARE kids and 5,000 non-DARE kids... and found that there was absolutely no significant difference in the number of children who did/didn't do drugs in either group.

More info here... through the Abstinence-Only programs, teens are denied basic information on how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS/STD's.

Both courts and scientific studies have proven, time and time again, that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs have not been proven to have any effect on the rates of teenage pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has cited abstinence-only-until-marriage programs as examples of "poor fiscal and public health policy," and the nation's most trusted medical organizations, such as the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAM), all support comprehensive sexuality education (once again, an approach to sexuality education that includes both strong messages of abstinence and contraception).

It boggles the mind... we live in such an advanced nation, but key government-funded and supported policies governing basic sex education are so backwards and archaic.

[L=ABC News article... a million more out there on the web.]http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20040712_1480.html">the program doesn't work (also...etc. to support this).</a>

 

[DainBramaged]

Support it.

 

[torpid]

Someone call the MP, a P&amp;N topic has gone AWOL

 

[HardcoreRobot]

teach em everything, cuz lord knows they're gonna do it all anyways, and its better to informed than ignorant

 

[Ameesh]

although i agree with you that kids should be taught about sex in a more comprehensive way by no means do i agree with you that kids should be taught at such a young age. KG == 4 &amp; 5 year olds. They don't need to be taught anything but the alphabet or the numbers and how to share and play in a group.

 

[Chaotic42]

So if you have AIDS and some of your bodily fluids get on the towel, then I use it and those fluids come in contact with any open wounds or whatever that I may have, I won't get AIDS?

Also, how are countries ranked for "Best sex education"? Is there some kind of numerical way to figure that out, or is it just a bunch of people using non-quantative methods to determine it?

I think that schools should stay out of sex ed. That's a job for parents. What if you and your family really believe that homosexuality is immoral? If a test question comes up, "Is homosexuality wrong?", what does the kid put? His religion says one thing, but the teacher will mark him off for the other.

 

[MacBaine]

I think that schools should stay out of sex ed. That's a job for parents. What if you and your family really believe that homosexuality is immoral? If a test question comes up, "Is homosexuality wrong?", what does the kid put? His religion says one thing, but the teacher will mark him off for the other.

How many parents do you think actually talk to their kids about sex? I would wager a good amount of money that very few actually do.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Originally posted by: MacBaine

I think that schools should stay out of sex ed. That's a job for parents. What if you and your family really believe that homosexuality is immoral? If a test question comes up, "Is homosexuality wrong?", what does the kid put? His religion says one thing, but the teacher will mark him off for the other.

How many parents do you think actually talk to their kids about sex? I would wager a good amount of money that very few actually do.

Lots of parents talk to their kids about sex. It's usually preceded by the parents yelling, "You did WHAT?"

 

[Mr. Lennon]

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: MacBaine
How many parents do you think actually talk to their kids about sex? I would wager a good amount of money that very few actually do.

I have no idea. There's no easy way to get anything close to a decent statistic on that.

I know that, in my experience, most Christian parentst that I know have talked to their kids about it.

 

[imported_Tomato]

Originally posted by: MacBaine

I think that schools should stay out of sex ed. That's a job for parents. What if you and your family really believe that homosexuality is immoral? If a test question comes up, "Is homosexuality wrong?", what does the kid put? His religion says one thing, but the teacher will mark him off for the other.

How many parents do you think actually talk to their kids about sex? I would wager a good amount of money that very few actually do.

Ditto, I know mine didn't... and I think I can maybe name one friend whose parents actually talked to them candidly about sex. With everyone else's parents, they were too uncomfortable with the topic and left sex ed up to the schools.

 

[OutHouse]

against it.

your link shut down my IE....

 

[TLfromAI]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
So if you have AIDS and some of your bodily fluids get on the towel, then I use it and those fluids come in contact with any open wounds or whatever that I may have, I won't get AIDS?

You should change your name to "hIimFrom1980."

You can't get it from toilet seats either.

 

[MisterJackson]

Teach kids in K 4-5 about oral sex?!?!

You're an f'ing tard.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

I am for them teaching that abstinence is the most effective method of birth control and STD prevention, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't learn about some other stuff. Ultimately it should be left up to the parents, though.

 

[JDub02]

I say let the parents decide when they want to tell their children. If I had a 5 y/o, I wouldn't want them being taught sex ed in school.

Abstinence is the best bet emotionally and physically. Let the parents decide if they should be taught something else.

 

[MisterJackson]

Originally posted by: Tomato

Originally posted by: MacBaine

I think that schools should stay out of sex ed. That's a job for parents. What if you and your family really believe that homosexuality is immoral? If a test question comes up, "Is homosexuality wrong?", what does the kid put? His religion says one thing, but the teacher will mark him off for the other.

How many parents do you think actually talk to their kids about sex? I would wager a good amount of money that very few actually do.

Ditto, I know mine didn't... and I think I can maybe name one friend whose parents actually talked to them candidly about sex. With everyone else's parents, they were too uncomfortable with the topic and left sex ed up to the schools.

Then that's your problem, and your parents fault. You cannot rationalize you opinion based on that.

 

[HermDogg]

Originally posted by: torpid
Someone call the MP, a P&amp;N topic has gone AWOL

Seriously, this is starting to get ridiculous. We need a mod who's sole purpose is to boot all the P&amp;N topics out of OT.

 

[imported_Tomato]

Originally posted by: MisterJackson
Teach kids in K 4-5 about oral sex?!?!

You're an f'ing tard.

Did I say that?

Oral sex, etc. education would probably come in high school. It would be dumb to teach that concept in grade school... way to ASSume, genius.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: TLfromAI
You should change your name to "hIimFrom1980."

You can't get it from toilet seats either.

So if you have AIDS and got fresh blood or semen on a towel and I turned around and rubbed that into an open wound, and we repeated that an arbitrarily large number of times, then I would never get AIDS from that?

 

[imported_Tomato]

Originally posted by: MisterJackson

Originally posted by: Tomato

Originally posted by: MacBaine

I think that schools should stay out of sex ed. That's a job for parents. What if you and your family really believe that homosexuality is immoral? If a test question comes up, "Is homosexuality wrong?", what does the kid put? His religion says one thing, but the teacher will mark him off for the other.

How many parents do you think actually talk to their kids about sex? I would wager a good amount of money that very few actually do.

Ditto, I know mine didn't... and I think I can maybe name one friend whose parents actually talked to them candidly about sex. With everyone else's parents, they were too uncomfortable with the topic and left sex ed up to the schools.

Then that's your problem, and your parents fault. You cannot rationalize you opinion based on that.

It's my and my parents' fault... but I'm not alone, and others who weren't taught comprehensive sex ed from their parents ("this is how you put a condom on properly, Suzy!") have suffered as well. Why do you think the US still has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancies and STD's of any developed nation? Those rates are lowest in countries that teach sex ed, methods of protection AS WELL AS abstinence. That way, the kids can make their own, informed decision about what to do.