Right Minded Online

It was recently revealed that 17 girls at a Gloucester, Massachusetts, high school became pregnant during the last school year — four times the normal amount. All of the girls are 16 or under, and nearly all of them are sophomores.

Two officials at the high school health center resigned to protest the local hospital’s refusal to allow contraceptive distribution without parental consent. (The hospital controls the clinic’s funding.)

Mayor Carolyn Kirk asserts there are many contributing factors to what she called a “blip” in the pregnancy rate, from glamorization of teen pregnancy in pop culture to cuts in funding that have reduced teachers and health classes.

Sarah Brown, chief executive of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, suggested some of the blame lies with the nation’s Hollywood-obsessed culture, in which stories about pregnant celebrities abound.

All of these factors may be true to some extent. However, the underlying cause for unwanted pregnancies remains the fact that our culture too often ridicules the concept of abstinence.

Few would disagree that unwanted pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases are too prevalent. There is considerable disagreement, however, on what to do about it. Liberals, predictably, turn to government to solve the problems that result from the over-sexualization of our youth, and the promotion of “safe sex” is a cornerstone of their solution. Safe sex, of course, isn’t 100% effective against unwanted pregnancies and STD’s. Yet too often, safe sex is written into taxpayer-funded public policies.

The conservative solution is abstience. You could walk into a room full of liberals and shout “Hey, I think they should teach abstinence in high schools,” and the audience members would fall out of their seats in side-splitting laughter at the ridiculous notion of abstinence-until-marriage.

Yet it is undeniable that abstinence works every single time it’s tried. One cannot contract an unwanted pregnancy or an STD by practicing abstinence. It’s biologically impossible. The left hates this. Liberals don’t like absolutes, moral or cause-and-effect. They abhor moral absolutes, preferring instead to operate in the gray areas of moral relativism. And the cause-and-effect absolute of “abstinence works every time it’s tried” undergirds the moral absolutes governing fornication, homosexuality, and adultery. Sin does have its consequences.

The left has been trying to use the public school establishment in many states and districts to sexualize America’s youth. Just read the National Education Association’s resolutions and you will find that the nation’s largest teachers’ union is busy trying to insert left-wing sex education programs into public schools, and some on the left (including Barack Obama) even advocate sex education all the way down to kindergarten.

In reality, public schools have no place educating students on sexuality. Academics belong in school; values-teaching, including sexuality, belongs in the home. That’s what parents are for.

A growing phenomenon among primarily Christian families who adhere to the concept of abstinence has been the Father-Daughter Purity Ball. Begun in Colorado Springs ten years ago, there are now some 4,400 purity balls held annually across the nation, and they symbolize fathers’ commitment to battle for their daughters and their daughters’ commitment to God to remain pure.

A news article in the Colorado Springs Gazette in May was typically apoplectic.

“The Father-Daughter Purity Ball has been criticized as a patriarchal ploy to subjugate young women, as an event that treats girls as their fathers’ property until they become their husbands’ property, or as something vaguely creepy because it’s a fatherdaughter date.”

“‘I understand the fear a parent has about their child in this hypersexualized world,’ said Tonja Olive, who teaches in the feminist and gender studies program at Colorado College. ‘And I don’t think these fathers are screwing their kids up for life.’”

“‘I just think this kind of policing of a child’s sexuality reinforces this argument that a girl’s sexuality is owned by her father or by her husband. And if that’s not what it’s about, why would they call it a purity ball? Why don’t they just call it a daddy-daughter ball? … It’s a little Orwellian.’”

On the one hand, liberals lament (or at least pretend to lament) unwanted teenage pregnancies, pointing to pop culture, a lack of sex education funding, or their inability to distribute condoms without parental consent as the cause.

Yet liberals ridicule the one fool-proof solution to unwanted pregnancies and STD’s: abstinence. But favoring pie-in-the-sky solutions that don’t work, while rejecting the one solution that does work is a hallmark of liberalism.

It is being reported that AIDS among young people is suddenly on the rise. I have to admit I don’t read AIDS stories very often, but I am a passionate advocate of abstinence before marriage, so the headline piqued my curiosity. After all, how could AIDS infections among young people be spiking after all the “safe-sex” preaching they are subjected to in school and by the media?

The linked article by Health Day News gives several possible reasons, but near the bottom is a startling revelation:

So what does work to change attitudes and behaviors? That’s a tough question, Chono-Helsley said, and the answer usually depends on particular contexts and communities.

“You really have to evaluate what methods you’re using and think about the person as a whole, not just the infection,” she said. “Because they’ve all heard ‘use a condom, use a condom.’”

The right approach is key, Blades added. “If you deliver the message to them in a way that’s not preachy or looking down on them, I think that’s more effective,” he said. “That’s what we try to do – deliver HIV information in a way that will click in with them, so that they’ll take home something that they didn’t know the night before.”

Does this mean that condoms, the greatest invention before the iPod and the end-all-be-all for those who push “safe-sex” onto our youth, might not be the best route for those who would prefer not to contract AIDS? Could it be that abstinence, ridiculed by the left as an unworkable and unattainable solution for avoiding AIDS and unwanted pregnancies, might actually be THE best way to avoid AIDS? Could it be that those of us who advocate abstinence because IT WORKS EVERY SINGLE TIME IT’S TRIED might actually be right?

Yes.

Related news story: Family Advocates Doubt Study on Risks of Virginity

But that doesn’t appear to be stopping Democrats from dropping federal funding of abstinence education.

Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action, said liberals want to protect Planned Parenthood’s monopoly on federal sex-education funding. She cited a study by Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation, that showed for every dollar abstinence education receives, Planned Parenthood receives $12.

Depriving children of an abstinence message “puts their dreams at risk,” Klepacki said. “We’ve proven this over and over and over again.”

Sex education that encourages premarital sexual activity has proven effective in helping to spread disease, Klepacki said, including:

* 18.9 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) each year.

* 15- to 24-year-olds representing nearly half of all new STD cases in 2000.

* 822,000 pregnancies among 15- to 19-year-olds in 2000.

“These numbers haven’t changed since I began teaching abstinence in 1979,” Klepacki said. “How many government studies do we have to have to know that being sexually active in your teen years is not safe?”

To be honest, sex education belongs in the home, not in school. However, if we absolutely must have sex education in school, it may as well be abstinence education. After all, abstinence works every single time it’s tried. There’s no other approach that’s 100% effective in preventing STD’s and unwanted pregnancies as simply abstaining from sexual activity until marriage (to a member of the opposite sex, since you have to clarify such things these days), and then remaining monogamous thereafter.

Harvard Club Promotes Abstinence

One of the most telling lines from this story is “Harvard student Rebecca Singh said she was offended by a valentine the group sent to the dormitory mailboxes of all freshmen. It read: ‘Why wait? Because you’re worth it.’”

Yes, it would take a liberal feminist to find offense in an uplifting phrase like that.

Related link: Dealing Girls a Raw and Racy Deal

(Money quote: Suddenly, women’s freedom was reduced to women’s freedom to be sexual playthings for male arousal and pleasure. “Liberation” has come to mean a woman’s ability to pole dance, expose herself, have multiple partners and avail herself of cosmetic surgery to enhance her “assets.”)

It bothers liberals whenever I make the statement that abstinence works every time it’s tried. Practicing abstinence renders it impossible to conceive an unwanted pregnancy or contract an STD. It’s an irrefutable statement, and you don’t need scientific studies to prove it.

An article posted on the website of Concerned Women for America back on January 30, adapted from a paper published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, contains some important findings, all of which point to the virtues of teen-agers practicing abstinence.

The UNC-CH scholars found conclusively that sex and drug behavior predicted an increased likelihood of depression, but depression did not predict behavior. Among girls, both experimental and high-risk behaviors predicted depression. Among boys, only high-risk behavior increased the odds of later depression.

The message is clear: teens engaging in risky behavior are at risk for depression. No wonder teen depression is so widespread when almost half (47 percent) of high school students reported in 2003 (the number has dropped since then) that during the past month they had had intercourse, 45 percent reporting drinking alcohol and 22 percent reported that they had used marijuana. Almost one-third of the students said that their feelings of sadness and hopelessness had kept them from doing normal activities over the past year.

It is important to also note that only four percent of students who abstained from drugs and sex had a problem with either depression or suicide.

So much for the cultural mantra that “sex is no big deal” and that all we need to do for teens is provide them with condoms and teach them “safe sex” practices.

Not surprisingly, this is another study to report that girls are far more negatively affected by early sexual activity than are boys. Sadly, too, girls who are already engaging in other risky behaviors have increased odds of drug experimentation if they are depressed. Depressed girls who are abstinent, however, have decreased odds of engaging in any high-risk behavior.

So, why is the left so determined to continue the myth that teens are going to “do it anyway”; that they are captive to their hormones so we must provide them with “protection” and ignore everything else?

A separate article posted on the same website on the same day, this one penned by Sarah Rode, concludes much the same.

Dr. Grossman speaks – as she describes it – from her experience in the “trenches of the college campus environment.” Popular explanations for widespread depression and suicide among college students include parental expectations, bad national leadership, rising tuition and lack of sleep. While psychiatrists are searching for victims to diagnose, Dr. Grossman explains that the majority of her profession is overlooking the “casualties of a radical social agenda.”

This “radical social agenda” that she speaks of is the combined effort to normalize harmful sexual behavior, equalize all sexual encounters (as long as latex is used), define individuals by their “sexual orientation” and assume that any desire must be fulfilled (except the desire for fatty foods and cigarettes). Health services on campuses warn students to “use protection” and even provide contraceptives free of charge. What they fail to protect against is the inevitable emotional damage, particularly to women, that results from casual sex.

Television shows like “Sex and the City” and movies such as “The Holiday” present women acting like men when it comes to sex: no emotional attachment and no expectation of commitment. Female college students begin to believe that this is the natural way women should treat relationships. Dr. Grossman explains that the biochemistry of the female body rejects this notion entirely.

Oxytocin is a chemical hormone that is released in women during sexual activity and induces bonding: “Neuroscientists have discovered that specific brain cells and chemicals are involved in attachment. … [T]he same chemical that flows through a woman’s veins as she nurses her infant, promoting a powerful and selfless devotion, is found in college women ‘hooking up’ with men whose last intention is to bond,” Dr. Grossman states in her book.

The young women that Dr. Grossman treats do not understand what causes their depression because there is no public discussion about the damage sexual promiscuity generates. It is not politically correct to acknowledge differences between men and women and how they are wired. SNAC, UCLA’s Student Nutrition Action Committee, provides helpful information to students regarding how to avoid obesity, eating disorders and other health-related issues. However, there is no comparable service telling young women how to avoid the emotional devastation and depression which results from “sexual experimentation.”

So while the “safe-sex” left ridicules the concept of abstinence, biology and common sense plainly demonstrate that one can avoid a myriad of negative outcomes by simply practicing abstinence.

Conservatism sometimes pops up in unlikely places. For example, abstinence-only education has been approved in Rhode Island, where, as one parent put it, the curriculum “offers positive information that will empower our teens to take control of their lives.” That’s a perfect description of abstinence. Not only does abstinence prevent 100% of unwanted pregnancies and STD’s, but those who remain abstinent until married are 100% in control.

Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health over at Focus on the Family, relates her experience at the 2006 National STD Prevention Conference that was presented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (a federal agency). Here’s part of that experience:

In the opening minutes, this “scientific” gathering began the attack upon those of us who believe in conservative values and God. Dr. Sander Gilman of Emory University started us down the liberal highway with his opening plenary session. He said results from the abstinence-based True Love Waits campaign have been “catastrophic” (lie). He went on to smear the very idea of abstinence education and marriage. He mockingly stated that conservatives think there are only two ways to prevent STDs — abstinence and the marriage bed. And then he sarcastically sneered, “Because humans never lie.” He continued saying that the celibacy movement is a false intervention (lie) and that abstinence is the most controversial issue in our field today. As the lies continued, he told the audience of nearly 1,400 public-health professionals that the religious right is opposed to HPV vaccine because it thinks it will increase teen sexual activity. No truth to that either. For one, Focus on the Family overwhelmingly supports this potentially life-saving vaccine.

Fortunately, students in Wisconsin are going to be taught that abstinence is best. For the record, I oppose sex education in schools, but if we absolutely have to have sex education, then it might as well be grounded in abstinence.

For those of you who are regular visitors to this site, you know that abstinence education has been a paramount topic during the past few weeks. One of my assertions is that the left opposes abstinence education because it views abstinence as a restriction of individual liberty. Now comes news that the National Abortion Rights Action League has taken things one step further than simply opposing abstinence education in favor of “safe sex” indoctrination. It is throwing a “Screw Abstinence Party.”

From Focus on the Family:

The invitation tells the invitee to, “Let them know you keep it real when it comes to your sexual health and decision making.” It goes on to feature specific aspects including, “Toys in Babeland: Seattle’s sleaze-free, sex positive purveyors of adult toys offer tips on sexy safer sex.” It’s clearly billed as an event for 21-and-over, but is also designed to support comprehensive sex education in public schools — for high school students and younger.

And what if your decision making leads you to abstinence? Well, it’s “screw you,” I guess. That means I have to add a third reason why liberals oppose abstinence education, and it is this: when it comes to abortion, abstinence really is bad for business.

First, liberals hate absolutes, whether moral absolutes or cause-and-effect absolutes such as “abstinence works every time it’s tried.” It is the tendency of liberals to take a simple black-and-white statement like that and obfuscate it into multiple shades of gray. The typical liberal cannot grasp the concept that it is impossible to get pregnant or contract an STD by practicing abstinence because it’s too simple.

This is why liberals ridicule abstinence education. They see abstinence education as too narrowly defined (or even too religious), because abstinence education is founded upon a cause-and-effect absolute. So the left ends up at war with common sense and biology, and loses every time.

Thus, liberals are reduced to pointing to selected studies which supposedly show that “Teens who participate in abstinence promise programs are more likely to have STD’s. Teens who participate in those promises are more likely to have anal and oral sex.” Even if this were true, and I dispute the assertion, it’s not the material that’s at fault. It’s that if one engages in sex (and contracts an STD), that individual did not practice abstinence (but may have, in fact, practiced “safe sex” instead).

Second, liberals view abstinence as the denial of personal liberty. Of course, the no-holds-barred sexual lifestyles advocated by leftists often lead to a greater restriction of personal liberty than abstinence (unwanted pregnancies and STD’s that still arise out of “safe sex,” homosexuality and AIDS, post-abortion complications). The solution to all these, of course, is abstinence — the one form of sex education that liberals ridicule.

A reader sent me this article from the Zenit News Agency, which is a Roman Catholic publication. The topic is abstinence education. It’s one of my hot-button issues, because the public education establishment, which is run primarily by the left, has turned public schools in many areas into hedonistic indoctrination centers for “safe sex.” (The only truly pure “safe sex” you can have is in a heterosexual monogamous marriage, but the left will never concede that.)

Anyway, the article is full of gold nuggets, but I am going to focus on the concluding four paragraphs:

Rector and Kirk presented another reading of the data examined in the Bearman study and concluded: “Overall, adolescents who have made virginity pledges are less likely to engage in any form of sexual activity.” And, they continued: “If they do become sexually active, their array of sexual behaviors is likely to be more restricted than that of non-pledgers.”

Another Heritage Foundation paper, “Adolescent Virginity Pledges, Condom Use, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among Young Adults,” also published June 14 by Rector and Kirk, noted that nearly 90% of parents want schools to teach youth to abstain from sex until they are married or in an adult relationship that is close to marriage.

Yet, the focus of government programs continues to be on “safe sex” — code words for promoting contraceptive use. Today, they said, the federal government spends at least $12 promoting and distributing contraception for every $1 spent encouraging abstinence.

These figures, Rector and Kirk added, understate the imbalance since they do not include most state and local spending on sex education, nearly all of which continues to have a heavy, if not exclusive, emphasis on contraception.

Point #1: Obviously, parents’ desires are at the opposite end of the spectrum from reality. But then, the government and liberals know far better than parents what’s best for their children, right?

Point #2: The left continues to obfuscate the basic facts of abstinence, and you don’t need studies to prove this, either. Biology and common sense are all that’s required. You see, abstinence works every single time it’s tried. You cannot contract an STD or get pregnant by practicing abstinence. (Exception: The Virgin Mary.) It’s impossible. But the left cannot grasp this, for some reason. I guess it’s too basic a concept.

Brittney has a problem with my assertion that “abstinence works every time its tried, because those who abstain from sex have a 0% chance of becoming pregnant or contracting an STD.”

She writes “Teens who participate in abstinance promise programs are more likely to have STD’s. Teens who participate in those promises are more likely to have anal and oral sex.”

Point #1: If you contract an STD, it’s because you didn’t abstain, not because you were taught incorrectly.

Point #2: If you engage in anal sex, then you aren’t practicing what you were taught.

Point #3: Bill Clinton insists that oral sex isn’t sex, so we can toss that one out.

The topic of “safe sex” versus abstinence was covered quite adequately in my column on October 16, 2003 (”Abstinence is fool proof”).

Here are the nuts and bolts from that column:

I agree with the abstinence-until-marriage and monogamy portions of the U.N. message, but the foolishness of “safe sex” education is it’s faith in the infallibility of proper condom use. A report on condom effectiveness assembled by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Health and Human Services dated July 20, 2000 states “…consistent condom use decreased the risk of HIV/AIDS transmission by approximately 85%.”

Reworking that conclusion, even if one engages in consistent condom use, he (or she) still runs a 15% greater risk of contracting AIDS (a fatal disease) than one who remains either abstinent or monogamous. (Of course, the risk of contracting STD’s by abstinence is 0%.) It is therefore insane to combat the AIDS epidemic by educating populations on methods that will still result in more AIDS.

It seems as though the NEA and SIECUS are determined to use the schools to pervert the morals of our young, while attacking curriculum which is founded in traditional values and common sense. Instead, such organizations would have educators send the aimless message that “abstinence is best, but please use condoms.” Their vitriol is perhaps best embodied in their association of abstinence messages with “censorship,” “fear and shame,” and “youth at risk.” But in the end, such descriptors can be more appropriately aimed at their own sexual agenda.

As usual, when it comes to abstinence education, liberals are at war with common sense, and are coming up short.