Posted on 12/02/2004 9:13:35 AM PST by presidio9
U.S. youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only sex-education courses often get inaccurate or misleading information, the Washington Post has reported.
According to a congressional staff analysis, some courses teach that touching a person's genitals can lead to pregnancy, abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, and half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, the Post said.
The report, prepared for California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, the Post said.
The Bush administration will provide $170 million (88 million pounds) next year to groups that teach abstinence only. Several million children age nine to 18 have participated in more than 100 federal abstinence programs since they began in 1999.
The report found that 11 of the 13 most commonly used curricula in such programs contained unproved claims, subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive health, the Post said.
Waxman's staff found the curricula included misconceptions such as a 43-day-old foetus is a "thinking person," HIV can be spread through tears and sweat and condoms failed to prevent HIV transmission in 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse, the Post said.
"I have no objection to talking about abstinence as a sure-fire way to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. I don't think we should lie to our children about science," Waxman told the newspaper.
Using logic if the medical definition of death is the absence of brain waves and a heart beat, than it follows that the definition of life would be the presence of brain waves and a heart beat.
Sorry, there's at least one example where it did not. The best you can say is 99.99999999999999999999%. =^)
The will of GOD cannot be calculated in any probability.
Love doesn't always lead to sex, Lust does. Humans are not perfect but that doesn't mean we should stop trying to be more perfect. If we all tried a little harder at being "Good" we would all be better off.
If I were single, I'd do it differently than when I was younger, but, love would still lead to sex.
That doesn't sound like you would do things differently because you are arriving at the same result.
Nothing is perfect. Abstinence will GUARENTEE any unwanted pregnancies. A promise of abstinence will only REDUCE unwanted pregnancies.
The unwanted pregnancies term gives me the creeps. How could the gift of life be unwanted unless it is inconvenient? Are you for abortion? I ask because of your terminology and previous arguments.
"some courses teach that ... abortion can lead to sterility and suicide"
Not sure how inaccurate that is
I am against abortions.
Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner meaning of the Party's sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party's control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible. What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. The way she put it was:
'When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simpIy sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.