Why Does Bush Still Support Abstinence-Only Sex Ed?

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Why Does Bush Still Support Abstinence-Only Sex Ed?

Posted Oct 10th 2007 3:36PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: George Bush, Sex

We just found this new PSA on Feministing.com. The government-funded ad encourages parents to tell their kids to wait until marriage to have sex. The campaign's dubious tagline: "Success comes to kids who wait to have sex."

So this is what our tax dollars are supporting instead of SCHIP.

According to this advocacy group, "For the Fiscal Year 2007, the federal government has allocated $176 million through three separate funding streams for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. The President has proposed increasing this funding level to $204 million for Fiscal Year 2008."

And these millions are being spent in spite of the overwhelming evidence that abstinence-only programs are useless.

From an April 2007 New York Times editorial: A Congressionally mandated report issued this month by the Mathematica Policy Research firm found that elementary and middle school students in four communities who received abstinence instruction - sometimes on a daily basis - were just as likely to have sex in the following years as students who did not get such instruction.

So, why are we paying for more commercials promoting a failed strategy in the very important fight against unwanted pregnancy and STDs?

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Reader Comments ( Page 4 of 4)

Previous 15 Comments

46. Ladies and Gentlemen, we do not live in a perfect society. Sex Education must be taught in school, because not all parents will talk to their kids about it. Here in the real world there are parents who do not even bother to feed their children, surely you all do not expect that they will give their kids great advice on sex. Not all kids go to church. Not all of them believe in God, so surely you do not expect them to be educated on the morality of sex according to views which you do not believe. How would you like to be forced into other views of sex that are not in line with your own beliefs? Would you automatically accept them as the way to be-despite your own beliefs and contentions. NO you would not.

Abstinence only sex education will NOT work. It does not WORK. Teens WILL have sex. Not all of them, but alot of them. A 4 week program about the dangers of sex will NOT change their minds. Some kids do not believe that consensual sex between adults is evil when not sanctioned by marriage. THEY WILL HAVE SEX! BOTTOM LINE! I graduated from a high school that taught abstinence only. Of me and my close friends (9 girls) one of us is still a virgin. None of us are married yet. The one who is a virgin made that choice based on her own feelings and beliefs, it had NOTHING to do with the ridiculus messages we received in school. Our sex ed told us the following things:

It was up to girls to refuse sex because boys could not control themselves

You could get AIDS from kissing

If you had sex with a boy, no matter what your relationship would be over in two weeks

If you had sex before marriage your vagina would feel like nose cartilage before age 30

And so much other bullshit that we could see through even in middle school.

Is this really the information you want your children to hear. Teens are not stupid. We know that all of the above is not true at all.

I had sex my senior year. It was not because I could not control my lust, it was because I wanted to. I am now engaged to the same man who took my virginity. Sex did not kill our relationship, it simply became a new form of intimacy. I have no regrets at all.

Teens need to know how to protect themselves, because all of the truth and misinformation that comes from abstinence only education will not stop all of them from having sex. Live in the real world. Even God gives us a choice of whether to believe in him or not, why can't all of his followers give people that same choice.

Stephanie at 3:01PM on Oct 11th 2007

47. To #15, Southern fried Freak, thanks, I love a woman with balls and a brain. You just made my day. Abstinence only eduation is almmost as bad as abstinence only aids funding for Africa. We all know how well that is going. What's next from these bozos in charge when they have to admit that this is a failure? Are they going to pass out judy dolls and vibrators? It's a great sentiment, but like the war on drugs or the war in Iraq, they are pissing into the wind.

Bob at 2:25PM on Oct 12th 2007

48. they are being responsible...

what do you want GW and the rest of the Admin to tell kids to do have sex with everyone you see?

Jon at 9:38PM on Oct 24th 2007

49. So, southernfriedfreak , because you were a matress-back who couldn't keep her panties on, everyone else should be too?

victor58 at 8:25PM on Oct 26th 2007

Previous 15 Comments

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Mo Rocca appears on a bunch of shows, including CBS News Sunday Morning (with the indescribably wonderful Charles Osgood), The Tonight Show on NBC, and NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! He's a sometime judge on Iron Chef and was featured on Telemundo's Amore Descarado. Last year he starred on Broadway in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. His expose "All the President's Pets" was published by Crown in 2004.