LOTD
A surefire way to reduce the abortion rate among teens: Marry ’em off at 11 and get ’em pregnant at 12.
Abstinence education works
A recent editorial and accompanying articles and letters clearly indicate that the move is on once again to impose amoral Planned Parenthood-style sexuality instruction upon public school students in Cumberland County.
Reports drafted by NARAL (an abortion lobby), the ACLU and Planned Parenthood chastise our county schools for failure on the part of its abstinence-education teachers to provide students all of the information they need to protect themselves from teen pregnancies and STDs.
To begin with, it should be noted that none of these activists are educators in any meaningful sense of the term. However, they do have close ties with many in the health-education field and work hand-in-glove with them.
In the mid-’80s, these groups introduced a Family Life Education program. Many of us objected to its potpourri of medical inaccuracies; e.g., homosexual behavior is normative, virtually no information on STDs, other odd descriptions of family relationships — all served up in an unpalatable values-neutral sauce.
The flagrant inaccuracies were hammered, and the condom classes were rebuffed by parents and a level-headed school board.
In that period ages 15 to 19 pregnancy rates ran 120-plus per 1,000. Today, after over a decade of abstinence instruction, they stand at 73.1 (an average of 2003 to 2005 stats). HIV infections are down, as are other STDs among most youth.
A secret: pregnancy is quite normal for girls ages 15 to 19 who are married.
Rev. Jeffrey C. Long
Fayetteville
The evidence is incontrovertible that abstinence-only education does not work. But that would be scientific evidence. For those who live in the reality-based universe, that would imply that we should look to alternatives. For those who live in the Bizarro universe, that just means we should throw more money at it. After all, what do scientists and statisticians know, anyway?
3 Responses to “LOTD”
 Comment by Lisa G. May 30th, 2008 at 8:52 am |
This letter makes me so angry I can’t even see straight. Apparently he’s of the “older men knowing what’s best for young women” camp. AKA “older men trying to continue to control the lives and bodies of young women” camp. Fucking mysgonist. |
 Comment by christine May 30th, 2008 at 11:02 am |
I bet the good Reverend performs many a shotgun wedding. |
 Comment by RedMolly May 30th, 2008 at 5:37 pm |
A secret: girls getting married before they’re 18 is not normal. Not in an environment where they control their own lives and bodies, anyway. (Disclaimer: I was married two weeks after my twentieth birthday. No kids ’til almost four years later, much to the annoyance of those among our parents’ friends who were convinced it was a shotgun wedding, I’m sure.) |