Tagged as: women
texas leads nation… in losing!
from today’s chronicle, Texas leads nation in abstinence education funding:
AUSTIN — Texas spent a nation-high $17 million last year for abstinence education programs that continue to stir debate about whether classes promoting virginity before marriage work in public schools.
Federal statistics in June showed that 52.9 percent of Texas students in ninth through 12th grades had sexual intercourse, compared with 47.8 nationally. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reported that Texas youths are less likely to use condoms.
Public schools in Texas are not required to offer sex education, but those that do must make the lessons abstinence-focused. Instructions about condoms are couched in terms of how often they fail, according to state law.
Abstinence-only supporters say more comprehensive sex education sends a mixed message to teenagers that having sex at their age is fine, while opponents cite surveys that they say prove abstinence lessons are failing.
woohoo, we’re outspending the rest of the nation in ~abstinence only~ education, while our teens have sex more often than the national average AND use condoms less often. why that must mean…. yep, you guessed it…
abortion, yeah, cuz i just can’t be controversial enough
recent article in the chronicle, who gets abortions? the answer might surprise you.
Half of the roughly 1.2 million U.S. women who have abortions each year are 25 or older.
Only about 17 percent are teens. About 60 percent have given birth to least one child prior to getting an abortion.
A disproportionately high number are minorities.
And regardless of ethnicity, high abortion rates are linked to hard times....
In recent years, the number of abortions has fallen; the 1.2 million tallied for 2005 was down 8 percent from 2000, and the per-capita abortion rate was the lowest since 1974.
...
That’s down from a peak of 1.6 million in 1990 but still represents more than 20 percent of all pregnancies.
that figure is disturbing to me. 1/5th of all pregnancies ends in abortion? that’s terrible.
don’t get me wrong. i’m not against abortion. in fact, i believe it to be the moral choice: kids that are not wanted should not be brought into this world. too many unloved children as it is. ideally, however, the number of abortions should be zero. access to and availability of birth control means are imperative.
He [Stanley Henshaw] believes the most effective countermeasure would be wider availability of contraceptives such as intrauterine device, or IUDs, that don’t require attention as frequently as condoms or birth-control pills.
that would be a help, possibly, though affordability is a major concern. affordability, access to, availability of.
now for something less controversial: abortion
i just finished watching this movie. very accurate documentary of the pro-life movement, tho somewhat lacking in depicting the other side of the story.
raised catholic, my church was pro-life, my family was pro-life, so it’s no shock that i was pro-life as well. (it should be noted that while i was very conservative, my parents were jfk democrats, so we weren’t ~always~ in agreement.) my parents even went to washington, d.c. for a “march for life” protest for our church. point being: i fully understand where the pro-lifers are coming from. killing babies is bad. i think everyone can agree on that.
my stance changed though…once i grew up and was no longer sheltered from reality by my church and my parents.
reality is this:
in a free society, individual liberty is essential and should only end at the point where that liberty impinges upon another’s. thus, my religious beliefs should not be imposed upon those who do not believe as i do. murder is wrong, as it impinges upon another’s right to life.
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