The Cost of Abstinence Education

Posted on August 15th, 2006 by gail helen.
Categories: Relationships, Education, Politics, Feminism, Current Events.

Sex Ed Changes At School With 65 Pregnant Teens - Carolina news station WYFF issued a report today that a Canton, Ohio school board is expanding their sex education program from promoting abstinence to also teaching students who decide to have sex how to do so responsibly, following the revelation that 13% of one high school’s female students were pregnant last year.

“The new Canton school board program promotes abstinence but also will teach students who decide to have sex how to do so responsibly, bringing the city school district’s health curriculum in line with national standards . . . Health textbooks, older than some students, will be replaced . . . The Ohio Department of Education doesn’t require schools to provide sex education, particularly when it comes to using contraceptives. The state curriculum calls for venereal disease education, which often is taught along with nutrition and the effects of drugs, alcohol and tobacco . . . According to the Canton Health Department, statistics through July 2005 showed that 104 of the 586 babies born to Canton residents in Aultman Hospital and Mercy Medical Center had mothers between the ages of 11 and 19.”

Killfile, who seeded this story into Newsvine, states the obvious point: “Teens are going to have sex. They just are. If you tell them to say “no” and don’t prepare them in any other way the end result is going to be high pregnancy rates, high std rates, and high drop out rates. Why is this so hard to understand?”

Blogged with Flock

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If Only I Had Teeth Down There . . .

Posted on June 22nd, 2006 by gail helen.
Categories: Relationships, Politics, Feminism, Technology, Current Events.

Medgadget reported back in September ‘05 on a device by South African inventor Sonette Ehlers intended as an “anti-rape female condom” named “Rapex,” a “device bristling with internal hooks designed to snare rapists.” Apparently inspired by a rape victim’s comment that if only she “had teeth down there,” it is designed to both disable the rapist and force him to seek medical attention in order to have the device removed, after which hospitals and clinics could turn the perp over to police. Apparently the story was originally reported by the L.A. Times, but I wasn’t able to discover a permalink to that article. Some of the more ridiculous comments surrounding this story are that we should “be concerned at how normal rape has become” (duh!) and that this device is comparable to a chastity belt. Historically, a chastity belt isn’t within the woman’s power to remove, while the Rapex device is supposedly inserted and removed with a tampon-like applicator. Some worry that rapists will be more likely to kill their victims in revenge, although the pain of this device sounds pretty disabling. Probably won’t do much to deter a group of men from killing their victim, but it might stop one.

I felt like blogging this today because the BBC was reporting that Amnesty International has called upon the Jamaican government to do something about the “widespread sexual violence and discrimination against women and girls,” saying that “women’s freedom of movement, and therefore their freedom to work, to study and to access health care, can be severely restricted. Women are also more vulnerable to ‘protectors’ who may ensure safe passage in return for sexual favours.” Amnesty’s report “details the case of a 15-year-old, Enid Gordon, whose family filed a complaint after she was raped by two men. A week before she was due to testify in court, she was found dead, strangled with her school tie, in the same place where she had been raped.” Although Rapex sounds like a hoax, it doesn’t change the sad fact that in places like the Sudan this device might be worn 24 hours a day. Even in America, 15-year-old girls aren’t safe from the reality - at home, on the street, at school - that your average man could easily overpower her if that was his intent. Screw teeth, screw justice — where’s the wrath of God when it’s needed??

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No Surprise There . . .

Posted on May 6th, 2006 by gail helen.
Categories: Relationships, Personal, Politics, Feminism, Current Events.

Unwanted Pregnancies Rise for Poor Women, Rate Drops for the Affluent: Marc Kaufman reports that a new study analyzing federal statistics indicates that “Poor women in America are increasingly likely to have unwanted pregnancies, whereas relatively affluent women are succeeding more and more in getting pregnant only when they want to . . . As a result of the growing disparity, women living in poverty are now almost four times more likely to become pregnant unintentionally than women of greater means, the study found.”

Listen well, girlies. Money is freedom, and choice is for the rich. Abstinence education is the worst joke the ridiculous right has played on this country. But don’t worry. Once you’re knocked up, you can undergo the physical discomfort of an abortion and the matching emotional baggage, or better yet, you can pray to your God that some ‘nice,’ straight, wealthy couple will adopt your baby and abuse it as their own. More likely, you will carry that baby for nine months, squeeze it out into this world, and love it in a way you will never, ever love anything else. Including any hopes of being all that you could be. All because you didn’t know or were too afraid/ashamed/asinine to take advantage of the fact that Planned Parenthood or another agency would hand over everything you need to be sexually safe (excluding common sense and self esteem, of course) with relatively few questions asked.

In the meantime, your more affluent sisters will be pursuing self-fulfillment through careers or service or experimental experiences, and maybe eventually finding their ideal partner and deciding “here’s the co-parent of my children, and s/he just happens to be a doctor!” Which is good, because when they say that we’re “getting preganant only when [we] want to,” they’re obviously not considering the women for whom pregnancy doesn’t come easily. Is infertility only a curse upon the wealthy? Or do we just think so much more about it because its yet another course on the buffet table of life that’s grown cold while we rushed about to gobble all the other things we were told we should be consuming?

Think about the meaning of choice. Choice is inherently sacrificial — you choose one thing and another is automatically removed from the table. Good luck directing the rage resulting from this slight of hand. Sure, you can have it all — career, passionate marriage, babies, self fulfillment, and good health. Just not with good sleep habits or all at the same time. Unless, of course, you have the money to invest in having others live your life for you. Kudos to the girls who manage to pull it all off, and make it look easy. Remind me to get the name of your therapist…

(Via Washington Post.)

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Define “Moral Regeneration”

Posted on April 5th, 2006 by gail helen.
Categories: Education, Politics, Feminism.

Zuma ’showered to avoid HIV’: “South African politician Jacob Zuma says he washed after sex with a woman with Aids to reduce the risk of infection.” This story stuck in my craw after I read this little nugget:

“Before being sacked as deputy president last year, Mr Zuma headed the government’s National Aids Council and the Moral Regeneration Campaign.”

He’s been accused of rape by an HIV-positive woman, and claims the unprotected sex was consensual. But no fear — he took a shower after the encounter to “minimize the risk of contracting the disease [HIV]”. He also said that he was prepared to marry the woman who accused him of rape, and that if he had reached an agreement with her family, he “would have had [his] cows ready.”

Alleged rape and corruption charges aside, it just goes to show you that you probably don’t want the morals police teaching your kid’s sexual education class…

(Via BBC News.)

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