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Abstinence Education

Shame on All Of Us

Jane Wells | Posted 05.08.2013 | Impact
Jane Wells

I bet Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Dugard felt a roller coaster of emotions when they heard about Amanda Berry's rescue yesterday. I know I did. Let's not forget the thousands of other American girls who are out there working as sex slaves.

The Damaging Effects Of Shame-Based Sex Education: Lessons From Elizabeth Smart

Kristen Howerton | Posted 05.07.2013 | Religion
Kristen Howerton

While it's great to explain the benefits of abstinence, Christians have begun to rely too heavily on a shame-based rhetoric that motivates teens into compliance for fear of being "dirty" or undesirable. I cannot tell you how many women I have counseled who became sexually active in their teen years and consequently felt like they were damaged goods.

Republicans Seek $550 Million To Keep Teens From Having Sex

The Huffington Post | Nick Wing | Posted 03.04.2013 | Politics

How much could it cost to keep teenagers from having sex? More than $100 million per year over the course of five years would be a good starting place...

HIV/AIDS Activist Hydeia Broadbent's Open Letter to Us All

Bryan Cain-Jackson | Posted 02.09.2013 | Black Voices
Bryan Cain-Jackson

Belated, but sincerely -- I want us all to observe Feb. 7 as it was National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Hydeia Broadbent claimed the hearts of m...

Bad News for Voters in Iowa and Teenagers in Tennessee

El Chanclaso | Posted 08.29.2012 | Latino Voices
El Chanclaso

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad was ahead of the anti-voter curve. As one of his first acts as governor, Branstad signed an executive order ending a policy that automatically gave ex-felons the right to vote after they were released from prison.

Sex, Teens and Risk: Conservatives Have It Wrong

James Peron | Posted 06.11.2012 | Politics
James Peron

Abstinence-only programs don't exist "for the kids," or because of risks. They exist almost wholly because Republicans -- and Democrats in Tennessee -- are trying to placate a religious minority, even if it means exposing teens to greater harms.

Wisconsin Must Return to Comprehensive Sex Education

The Badger Herald | Posted 05.20.2012 | College
The Badger Herald

It is time for Wisconsin's legislators to learn to accept reality. The fact that young people have sex is not changing. What must change, however, is the return to comprehensive and honest sex education for our youth.

Abstinence-Only Sex Education Bill In Utah Prohibits Teaching Contraception

Posted 04.24.2012 | Home

A bill requiring sex education classes to teach an abstinence-only curriculum moved closer to becoming a law in Utah Wednesday. The state House pas...

New Pornography Regulations in L.A.: Are They Addressing the Right Problem?

Marianne Mollmann | Posted 04.09.2012 | Politics
Marianne Mollmann

The ordinance will not be very effective at influencing the overall depiction of sex in imagery and media. This outcome is all the more lamentable because encouraging condom use is so important. Let's look at the facts.

New National Sex Ed Standards Encourage 'Safe Sex,' Sexual Identity, Anti-Bullying

AP | By KIMBERLY HEFLING | Posted 01.09.2012 | Home

WASHINGTON -- Young elementary school students should use the proper names for body parts and, by the end of fifth grade, know that sexual orientation...

Scott Walker's New Jobs Plan: Abstinence-Only Education

Mother Jones | Kate Sheppard | Posted 11.16.2011 | Politics

A bill launched during Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's jobs session and nearing passage in the Legislature would repeal significant portions of the stat...

Cara Santa Maria

WATCH: The Science of Sex Education

HuffingtonPost.com | Cara Santa Maria | Posted 01.15.2012 | Home

What is the most effective way to educate young people about sex? What can we do to minimize unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs)? Does abstinence-only education work? Some people think so.

Senate Bill Mandates Abstinence Focused Sex-Ed

Laura Hibbard | Posted 01.03.2012 | Home

A bill that would require schools in Wisconsin to promote abstinence and marriage in sexual education classes has passed in the Senate, the Northweste...

The Campaign Against the Campaign Against Health

Rupert Russell | Posted 12.10.2011 | Politics
Rupert Russell

This week a few brave politicians stood up to protest the political attacks aimed squarely at women's health.

The Sex Ed Women Really Need

Allison Gaudet Yarrow | Posted 10.28.2011 | Women
Allison Gaudet Yarrow

Where I grew up, in the buckle of the Bible Belt, sex, when it was discussed at all, was presented as something to be feared -- it bred diseases and u...

Please Protect the Innocent Conjugal Sex Fruit

Mark Morford | Posted 09.11.2011 | Politics
Mark Morford

Not so many years ago, we laughed at a whole kookball buffet of socio-pathetic phenomena: Hummers as mutant status symbols. Promise rings. Gay meth-snorting megachurch pastors. Ahh, simpler times. It all seems so innocent now.

Teen Pregnancy Rates Highest In South

The Hill's Healthwatch | Mike Lillis | Posted 05.25.2011 | Home

In Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, for instance, 2008 birth rates were less than 25 per 1,000 teens aged 15 to 19, CDC found. I...

Bristol Palin and Mike "The Situation": What Don't You Understand?

Neil Cole | Posted 05.25.2011 | Media
Neil Cole

What do you get when you combine the country's most visible proponent of abstinence, the most in-your-face seeker of casual sex, a pack of gold condom...

Why We Should Read "Soft Pornography"

Isabel Kaplan | Posted 05.25.2011 | Books
Isabel Kaplan

Concerns about Slaughterhouse-Five, Speak, and Twenty Boy Summer highlight a deeper and more troubling belief -- that is, that young people should be prevented from exposure to anything that discusses sex and sexual activity in any way.

Amanda Terkel

Governors Apply For Abstinence-Only Funds From Health Law They Opposed

HuffingtonPost.com | Amanda Terkel | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics

Two governors who were vocal opponents of health care reform are now requesting federal grants for abstinence-only education that are funded by that v...

The Myth of the Teen Pregnancy Epidemic

Kierra Johnson | Posted 11.17.2011 | Healthy Living
Kierra Johnson

Teenage pregnancy isn't the epidemic. The lack of information and support for people to make healthy decisions about their lives is the true epidemic. The culture of shame and scapegoating around sex is the real problem.

Democrats Spend $250 Million on Ineffective Abstinence Programs

Reproductive Justice | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics
Reproductive Justice

Imagine a quarter of a billion dollars, approved by Democrats for programs which the vast majority of them know don't work. The money was attached to ...

In Colorado Springs, Abstinence-Only Education

Colorado Springs Independent | By Anthony Lane, J. Adrian Stanley and Pam Zubeck | Posted 05.25.2011 | Denver

The 2007 legislation may have been a victory for advocates of comprehensive sex education in Colorado. But in the larger war over what gets taught in ...

Who Put Failed Ab-Only Programs Back in Health Care Reform?

Reproductive Justice | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics
Reproductive Justice

By James Wagoner, President, Advocates for Youth Lost in the shuffle of analysis of the new health care reform legislation, is the fact that Democrat...

Marry Me, Bristol: Christian Hypocri-sex, Pt. II

Rob Asghar | Posted 05.25.2011 | Religion
Rob Asghar

I readily concede that moral boundaries and restraint are crucial to good living. But I am suspicious of the Pharisaic distortions, namely an irrational rigidity, or the sorts of bizarre loopholes and rationalizations common to those who take abstinence vows.