UNDER THE RADAR
VALUES –
VIRGINS WITH STDS: President Bush has pushed hard for an ideological policy when it comes to teen sex: teaching abstinence and nothing else. It's not working. A new study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health finds that 88 percent of sexually active people who took an "abstinence pledge" as young adults had intercourse before marriage. And talk about unintended consequences: sexually active pledgers were less likely to use condoms and more likely to experiment with riskier activities such as oral and anal sex, the study found, and were just as likely to contract a venereal disease as people who didn't make the promise. In related news, congressional Republicans last week defeated a pregnancy prevention measure offered by Sens. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) which would have "included more funding for family planning, teen pregnancy programs and education about emergency contraception." Why would supposedly "pro-life" conservatives in Congress reject a bill specifically aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies? "New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, chairman of the Budget Committee, argued against the measure, saying it would block funding to abstinence-only sex education programs."
ADMINISTRATION –
THE FEDERAL WITCH HUNT: If the state of a democracy can be judged by its respect for dissenters to those in power, then this administration may be running aground of the foundations of our nation. Along with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "roughly a dozen nonprofit organizations have publicly contended that government agencies and Congressional offices" have used oversight and investigatory powers "to discourage them from activities and advocacy that in any way challenge government policies," and claim that other nonprofits are complaining but not as vocally. For example, after questioning "the efficacy of abstinence-only sex education," Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit that educates young people about reproductive health, faced what its president could only describe as "bare-knuckled intimidation" from dozens of conservatives in Congress. The government watchdog group OMB Watch has been investigating the issue since the investigations "started happening in a serial way."
VIRGINS WITH STDS: President Bush has pushed hard for an ideological policy when it comes to teen sex: teaching abstinence and nothing else. It's not working. A new study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health finds that 88 percent of sexually active people who took an "abstinence pledge" as young adults had intercourse before marriage. And talk about unintended consequences: sexually active pledgers were less likely to use condoms and more likely to experiment with riskier activities such as oral and anal sex, the study found, and were just as likely to contract a venereal disease as people who didn't make the promise. In related news, congressional Republicans last week defeated a pregnancy prevention measure offered by Sens. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) which would have "included more funding for family planning, teen pregnancy programs and education about emergency contraception." Why would supposedly "pro-life" conservatives in Congress reject a bill specifically aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies? "New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, chairman of the Budget Committee, argued against the measure, saying it would block funding to abstinence-only sex education programs."
ADMINISTRATION –
THE FEDERAL WITCH HUNT: If the state of a democracy can be judged by its respect for dissenters to those in power, then this administration may be running aground of the foundations of our nation. Along with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "roughly a dozen nonprofit organizations have publicly contended that government agencies and Congressional offices" have used oversight and investigatory powers "to discourage them from activities and advocacy that in any way challenge government policies," and claim that other nonprofits are complaining but not as vocally. For example, after questioning "the efficacy of abstinence-only sex education," Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit that educates young people about reproductive health, faced what its president could only describe as "bare-knuckled intimidation" from dozens of conservatives in Congress. The government watchdog group OMB Watch has been investigating the issue since the investigations "started happening in a serial way."
posted by T. Scott Brineman at 9:58 AM
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