Cedarbird,
I get it...you really like JUNO!   



I disagree.

Although I realize this is what government schools and the libertines are telling everyone...that kids can't control themselves...they are going to do it anyway...that sex is just another activity that even middle schoolers may engage in. Get used to it....that's the way it is ...just do it 'safely'...give em' the pill or condoms...ready, set go...blah, blah, blah. But oh wait, why are they depressed, committing suicide, aborting, contracting STDs, or having the baby because it's the chic thing to do especially with the school nursery.

Those who think this way are selling our kids short and allowing this low standard for children is a disgrace...especially when self control is not only desirable but also attainable.

Sure it requires family love and responsibility as well as thought, pride in oneself, prudence and courage when faced with trying social situations.

I wonder where this fanciful imaginary land that the 'abstinence-only' people live in where people didn't have sex before the '60s came from.

Because it's certainly not historically accurate.

But whatevs.

Of course they didn't! Everyone knows there were no bastards prior to the late 20th century.

Actually teenage pregnancy rates are at a thirty year low. This spike in this little town is an aberration.

It's not that they can't control themselves. They choose to. It sounds like YOU are the one saying that kids have no free will. That they are just mindless automatons that will do whatever they are told and if teachers tell them not to have sex then they won't.

No matter what people say, kids are rebellious, and they HAVE MINDS OF THEIR OWN. THE KIDS, not the programs, dictate whether or not they have pre-marital sex.

Give them credit. Some choose not to. Some choose to do it. It's a free will thing, heaven forbid.

Nevermind

BINGO!!! CB gets a cookie!

Keeping with that....I'm wondering...

We know now that many view JUNO as a story of a young girl who made a mistake, became pregnant and turned that situation into life "happily everefter" for everyone involved.

Could young people today, like these 17 sixteen year-old girls from Glouster High School, think becoming pregnant is "cool"?

Could these girls on their way to becoming mommies be forgetting that life isn't a movie that's over in an hour and a half?

I don't think you can blame these pregnancies on a movie. For one thing, these women are choosing to raise their kids not give them up for adoption.

Bingo! Of course kids can control themselves.




Sure, that's a given that it's the kids themselves who ultimately make their own decisions whether or not to engage in premarital sexual activity.

But permissive sex ed programs begin with the (false) premise, "your going to do it anyway", and thus interests, enables and encourages students to engage in pre-marital sex while abstinence until marriage/ character education programs do not!

Who is better off...the kids getting 13 years of explicit permissive sex instruction or the ones who are encouraged to save sexual activity for marriage?

Why not? If you can blame teenage sex on the media and violence on video games, you're not responsible for anything anymore. And isn't that what we really want? To feel like we have clear consciences?

All I know is, when I go on MY shooting spree, I'm blaming GTA. And when Cedar finally admits she's pregnant, I know she's putting that blame on Juno.

Lula, I have YET to see conclusive proof that either one of these have substantial success rates. I'm not sure why you argue that one is better than the other when neither one have a good track record.

This in my mind is no different than blaming Planned Parenthood for abortions. Addressing the symptom/result and not the initial cause/catalyst.

I'm not blaming these pregnancies on the movie, JUNO any more than I am on starlets like Britney Spear's younger sister who's been getting headlines for becoming pregnant at 16. Like everyone else, I'm simply making observations and asking questions.

I've pointed the blame more towards permissive sex ed and an "anything goes" culture that does little more than "ho-hum, yawn", when girls by the dozens get pregnant.



Women? Really, these 16 year-old teenie boppers who will (maybe) enter their junior year next year are women to you?

How do you know what these 17 girls are going to do with their babies? Any one of them at any time could go to Planned Parenthood and have the baby aborted...any one of them at any time could decide to go the adoption route.

They are choosing to raise their kids you say or are the taxpayers going to support them...starting with day care in the school nursery? I'd say for most of them the sperm donor is gonna split and the odds of them having to be on welfare is pretty high.

How many of these teen mommies will marry the guy who was "good enough to impregnate them" and live happily ever after?

Pregnancy rates may be down but not across the board...and in this regard credit must be given to abstinence only education where it has been allowed. Given the fact that the government spends over 1 billion dollars each year promoting contraceptive sex ed which amounts to 12 times it does on abstinence until marriage education.

While teen pregnancy rates are down, kids younger and younger are becoming sexually active more than ever before and as a result we have an epidemic of venereal diseases.



Yes, but it's not unique.

For example, I learned that 11 high school girls were pregnant in a small New Hampshire town.

Can you provide a link that supports this?

AD posts:

No offense, but why are you so blindsighted about PP? ABORTION is Planned Parenthood's number one business...to the tune of over three quarters of a Billion dollars! That's a lot of dead babies. That's a lot of defying, "Be fruitful and multiply".

You should check out Planned Parenthood's history promoting sex not only for recreation but for social revolution.

Google PP's foundress Margaret Sangar. Perhaps your local library has George Grant's "Killer Angel", one of the best biographies of her.

Have you ever checked out PP's website wwww.teenwire.com ?

AD, Sorry, I don't know how to do links, however this might be helpful.

Last April, the Heritage Foundation released this press release:

NEW RESEARCH ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ABSTINENCE EDUCATION

FEATURING RESEARCH FROM:

Stan E. Weed, Ph.D., Research Director, Institute for Research & Evaluation
Robert E. Rector, Senior Research Fellow, Domestic Policy at The Heritage Foundation

Christine Kim, Policy Analyst, Domestic Policy at The Heritage Foundation

Policymakers have long debated the best methods for addressing teen sexual activity. Two new studies highlight the encouraging findings from emerging research regarding abstinence education. Dr. Stan Weed’s study, published in the January/February 2008 issue of the American Journal of Health Behavior, assesses the effectiveness of abstinence education in reducing the sexual activity of students in Virginia middle schools. The second study, by Christine Kim and Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation, presents the most up-to-date comprehensive review of 21 prior studies of the effectiveness of abstinence and virginity pledge programs.


“Comprehensive” Sex Education is Ineffective: Abstinence Works, Major National Study Shows

By Elizabeth O’Brien

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, June 13, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A major report on teen sex education, released by Dr. Stan Weed of the Institute for Research and Evaluation in Salt Lake City, shows why abstinence is the most successful method of preventing physical and emotional complications resulting from pre-marital sexual activity. His research is based on the results of many studies that have followed the education and behavior of over 400,000 adolescents in 30 different states for 15 years (see http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007_docs/CompSexEd.pdf).

The final report, entitled “Abstinence” or “Comprehensive” Sex Education? begins by pointing out the flaws in a national study on abstinence released by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Conducted in April 2007, this previous study examined the progress of teens who participated in four different abstinence education programs. The final report indicated that abstinence education was ineffective and that young adolescents should receive “comprehensive” sex education, that is, sex-education that teaches about various sexual behaviors and “safe-sex” methods.

After examining the Mathematica study’s methods, the Institute found several major errors that made the study non-representative of American sex education. First, says the more recent study, it took sample teens from “high-risk” sectors of the population, such as poor African or American single-parent households. During the study, young people received abstinence education in pre-adolescence, but then received no follow-up training during adolescence. They were also examined about their sexual activity several years after any learning might have taken effect.

Dr. Stan Weed told LifeSiteNews.com: “Within the United States, sexual activity rates have been going down among teenagers for about the last 12 or 13 years, and that coincides with when the abstinence education started. Abortion, pregnancies and out of wedlock births rates have also been going down among teens during that same time period. However, pregnancy, abortion and out of wedlock births have been rising for the older age group, between 19-25, a group that has not been targeted by abstinence programs.”

Outlining these limitations and the report’s inaccuracies, Dr. Weed highlighted the problems that sexually active teens encounter and the failure of “comprehensive” sex education to remedy such issues. These include teen pregnancy, STD’s and poor emotional health. Sexually active young people are also more often physically assaulted or raped.

“Comprehensive” sex education also fails to explain the limitation of condoms, said the recent study, pointing out that “many consequences of teen sexual activity are not prevented by condom use.” Condoms are never a total guarantee against STD’s, and so there is no kind of truly “safe” sex outside of marriage. Secondly, despite 20 years of sex education, young people even fail to use condoms consistently. Most importantly, however, condoms do nothing to prevent the heartbreak, depression and low self-esteem caused by sexual activity.

The Utah Institute researchers also investigated previous major studies on “comprehensive” sex education and found that these programs had little impact on the behavior of teens during their education and no long-term effects whatsoever. In fact, “of 50 rigorous studies spanning the past 15 years, only one of them reports an improvement in consistent condom use after a period of at least one year.”

When evaluating abstinence programs, the Institute investigated both high-risk and moderate-risk students in programs such as Reasons of the Heart, Heritage Keepers, Sex Respect and Teen Aid. Students in these programs were far less likely to be sexually active and those who were reduced their sexual activity by a large percentage. In the Reasons of the Heart study, for example, researchers found that “adolescent program participants were approximately one half as likely as the matched comparison group to initiate sexual activity after one year. The program’s effect was as strong for the African American subgroup in the sample as it was overall.”

The most successful abstinence programs were those that emphasized the risk of pre-marital sexual activity. They showed how abstinence fully protects a young person from STD’s, teen pregnancy and emotional trauma. They underlined the importance of self-control and responsibility and gave students the positive goal of a stable and committed marriage towards which to work in future. At the same time, however, researchers also found that it was crucial to re-educate adolescents about abstinence each successive year.

Dr. Weed concludes, “Well-designed and well-implemented abstinence education programs can reduce teen sexual activity by as much as one half for periods of one to two years, substantially increasing the number of adolescents who avoid the full range of problems related to teen sexual activity. Abandoning this strategy…would appear to be a policy driven by politics rather than by a desire to protect American teens.”

These results are consistent with many other findings, including a 2005 study by Medical Issues Analyst Reginald Finger of Focus on the Family. He investigated over 7,000 people in the United States that indicated the many social and emotional benefits to remaining abstinent. (see http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/may/05050607.html).

READ THE ORIGINAL STUDY:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007_docs/CompSexEd.pdf

See Related Coverage:

Bush: Abstinence Only 100 % Effective Means of Preventing Pregnancy, HIV, STDs
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06062308.html

Abstinence Alone Protects Fully Against HIV, Ugandan First Lady Tells Youth
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/dec/06120601.html

Abstinence Education Works - New Report Offers More Evidence
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/dec/04121004.html

I LUUUVV cookies!

Thanks, AD.

Am I blind sighted?

The abortion is a result of a pregnancy. The pregnancy is result of intercourse. The intercourse is result of decision to have sex. The decision to have sex is built on so many variables that 'abstinence only, comprehensive sex ed and other versions' do not address the root.

I have experienced several of the different variations of the above. Abstinence only was more of a scare the hell out of you and you'll get this disease if you have sex. The comprehensive are similar in a video of the variety of diseases out there if you don't protect yourself.

I'm sure the education programs vary and will continue to vary. The problem I see in abstinence only is they taboo sex (outside marriage). They stress morality and 'right' living. They don't discuss how to deal with these new hormonal based feelings and urges (during the age of puberty). They don't give you tools and tips on how to deal with these 'new' findings. Some just say, oh these feelings are normal just don't 'act' on them.

This is where and what I see being the issue being overlooked. Until this area is addressed I can find NO fault in PP. You provided correlations of Abstinence-only successes but I can post just as many links that suggests Abstinence-only failing.

My question about providing a link was to PROVE that abstinence-only SHOULD get the credit for the areas of reduced pregnancy rates? I have yet to see conclusive evidence that suggests abstinence-only programs are the SOLE reason for reduced teenage pregnancy/promiscuity.

You are welcome CB. Thanks for contributing to intellectual thought.

A child is the result of a pregnancy.






Besides providing contraceptives to girls as young as 11 years old, Planned Parenthood's main mission is to provide the means to kill(by abortion) that unborn child.

If you can't find fault with PP and what PP does, then how do you reconcile the Commandment of God, "thou shalt not kill" and Deuteronomy that says to choose life?

Plain and simple....the government spends millions of dollars promoting the "have safer sex" ideology in public schools....Without parental input or permission, officials hand out birth control pills, patches and condoms to kids who then assume they are expected to use them. Guess what AD? Protected sex really isn't. Why? Because, amongst other things, contraceptive, permissive sex-education ignores the most important sex organ: the brain.

Whereas, the idea behind abstinence education or of teaching chastity is somewhat radical...kids are actually given credit for using their minds and not their bodies. And what are handed out in these programs are respect and relationship building skills. What do teens want? They want us to help them with ways to resist sexual pressure. To sex, instead of being expected to say, "yes", kids actually want us adults to empower them to say "No".

Oy vey do you TRY to be a nudnick or does it just come naturally?

I was progressing backwards FROM the abortion. I equate pregnancy as an unborn child. I am NOT pro-abortion but realize abortion is the symptom not the cause.



I do not find fault in them as being the PROBLEM. Agreed they are not HELPING the issue but the blame doesn't solely belong to them.

On your second point. I do not know the hearts of the people. For all I know they could deep down believe that they are helping people but totally ignorant of what they are doing. They will be held accountable for their actions just like I will be for mine. Only out of arrogance could I even begin to think judgment or condemnation on them. So you see I don't have to reconcile it.

CB, would you mind expounding what you experienced in the abstinence only education?

Me too.

We certainly know permissive sex ed has been in place long enough to measure and across the board has brought dismal results.


My contention is that some, not sole, credit must be given to Abstinence only ed.

I think the connection between parental and family involvement and reduced teen pregnancies cannot be overlooked.

After the Gloucester fiasco, it seems more clear than ever that parents who give their job and duty of teaching sexuality over to schools are asking for a big let down.