ACLU Disappointed in Congress for Promoting Teen Abstinence
Posted on November 3, 2007
The ACLU expressed frustration in Congress for its passage of a $28 million increase in an abstinence encouraging program to teens. They cite some uncited “recent studies” that say abstinence education does not work.
“We are deeply disappointed that the Democratic leadership would support an increase in funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which studies have shown are ineffective at best. Congress should eliminate funding for this program and put valuable taxpayer dollars toward programs that work and reproductive health policies that protect the public health by providing young people with all the information they need to make smart decisions about their health and well-being.â€
I still lack the understanding to grasp exactly how abstinence doesn’t work. I would think it is the only method of birth control that works 100% of the time, and the only sure fire way not to contract an STD. However, in all their wisdom, the ACLU say Congress should eliminate all the funding for this program and give up on teaching children to abstain. Afterall, if kids abstain until marraige, there would be less people in need of having their right to kill an unborn child protected. I assume when the ACLU suggest providing young people with information needed to make smart decisions about their health, they are more in favor of such popular programs like handing out birth control to 11 year olds in middle schools without parental consent.
» Filed Under ACLU, Abortion, Child Exploitation, News
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9 Responses to “ACLU Disappointed in Congress for Promoting Teen Abstinence”
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When rating the effectiveness of various birth control devices, they usually have two ratings: effectiveness with proper use and effectiveness with normal use. Let’s apply the same logic here.
The problem with abstinence-only as a birth control method is that it’s 100% effective with proper use, but only [Insert some low random number here]% effective with normal use.
That is why some people think it’s a bad approach. Agree or disagree, but is it really that hard to understand?
It is hard for me to understand why anyone would want to abandon encouraging something that has 100% effectiveness with proper use.
I’ve never met anyone that doesn’t encourage abstinence. It’s the “only” part that turns people off. Many people think it’s important to teach the backup plans too.
Here’s a question…Why is it Governments job to promote this? I hate the ACLU, as well as have a distaine for Federal Programs.
Shouldn’t this be the parents job and Churches? I know that’s a strange concept to some, but that’s how it use to work. Kind of like the whole “Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marrige”. Why is the Government even involved with Marrige? That’s a sacrament. Period. Nothing to do with Governement. It’s between a man,woman, and God. Not some moronic Governement offical.
It’s the samething with this. The Government has no business being involved with this stuff. Limited Government Conservatives my foot.
In the last two weeks, I’ve had two 10th grade girls in my classes who followed the “go ahead, just use a condom” philosophy of the ACLU tell me they are pregnant. That is in addition to the three other pregnant girls I already had in my classes.
None of my girls who have tried abstinence are pregnant.
Want to talk to me about the lack of success of abstinence?
Well, Jeff was saying, in essence, that the only time abstinence does not work is when it is not practiced. Same thing anyone of us would say.
RegularRon makes the greatest point. This is a topic that the schools should leave to the parents completely.
I agree with Ron. In fact, I go further and question the whole idea of public education.
Rhymes, I don’t put much stock in anecdotes. They’re useful for dispelling blanket statements, but there’s a lot of gray area in this one and I think we all recognize that. So, one particular sample of children doesn’t mean a whole lot.
BTW, I’ve never encountered a single sex ed curriculum that could accurately be described as “go ahead, just use a condom”. Without fail, they are some variation of “The risks are A, B, and C. The risks can be mitigated with X, Y, and Z. The risks can only be eliminated with abstinence.”
Yes, but I went further than that, Jay. When only abstinence is taught, those that ignore the lesson (We all know there are children that will ignore even the best lessons) are guaranteed to end up in a very risky situation. Not only do they lack the necessary maturity to make a proper decision, they don’t even have the raw data.
But actually, my biggest objection is a matter of principle. An abstinence-only program willfully withholds valid and relevant data. Studies and statistics are often used to support that approach, but the primary motivation is invariably moral. Schools are not the proper place to teach morality. We have parents and clergy for that.
In your article you said that the ACLU cites some recent studies but does not provide any link to said studies. I presume you are implying that the studies mentioned do not exist. Ah but they do. Allow me to quote the site “dispatches from the culture wars”.
“Let me fill in some of the details on those studies. There’s the Texas A & M study. There’s the Bruckner/Bearman study. There’s the Advocates for Youth study of 10 state programs. And there’s the comprehensive study commissioned by Congress of several abstinence only programs around the country. All of these studies confirmed that abstinence only programs do little, if anything, to reduce rates of teen sex; several studies, on the other hand, have shown that they do result in considerably lower rates of contraception usage by those who go through the programs. This might have something to do with the fact that abstinence only programs contain numerous false claims, some of them quite laughable.”
Quite a list of studies to show that abstinence only programs DO NOT WORK! Don’t you agree? So perhaps you should retract your article and appologise to the ACLU. That is if you have a genuine concern for the truth.
Abstinance education doesn’t work but teen are abstaining more from sex than they used too before abstinence education was available. I guess that is just coincidences.
The only reason I believe some preach abstinence education doesn’t work is that it interferes with their selling condom and other birth control devices. The American way is Money trumps morals.:-)