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The Alan Guttmacher Institute is a 501(c)(3) corporation focused on family planning. If you take the time to read their publications and monographs, you will find this common thread: we are concerned about human reproductive rights in the US and elsewhere including the right to on-demand abortion. Want to guess where the bulk of their funding comes from?
I'm an asshole! What's your excuse?
May I bring up the fact that teenagers are not very responsible people across the board and many make bad decisions and this does not affect just pregnancy, but taxes the heck out of the healthcare and medicare system for the treatment of lifelong STDS. Teen pregnancy is not the only problem, they need to see what a baby goes through before it dies after birth because of their herpes. One of the sadest and most horrible way to die.
I wonder how that came up with that number?Originally Posted by DCDAWG
Originally Posted by DCDAWG
...among the 69% of public school districts...
I wonder how that came up with that number?
Well, we all know what you have in mind for tonight. :icon_wink
AH....er.... counting yourself to sleep right?
As highlighted by the aptly named Dirtydawg, this particular Guttmacher survey was used to simply show the percentage of school districts around the country that offer sex ed courses and how they teach it. Just a survey. No analysis. No conspiracy. No a-ha moment.
Paranoia deep destroya.
lol.. Are you that naive?? Remind me to send you some RNC surveys next election time. lol.
sources mean something dude.
as you say, just a survey of how it is taught: no stats on pregnancy rates, no analysis, nothing. and as someone else pointed out, it would be very difficult to get an objective study as most certainly any researcher performing such a study would set it up to prove one conclusion or another. ("sources matter"). i think that the past couple of decades of sex education has not been very successful in reducing teen pregnancy or std's. until recently, very little "abstinance only" education has been taught. why not give it a chance for a change? the statis quo is not working.
I agree, dude. That's why I used Congressional Research Service as my source for the post, a source used and trusted by all lawmakers, Republican and Democrat alike on all issues facing Congress. Be careful throwing around the word naive for you may reveal yourself as being just that.
And again, if you will re-read the damn thing (I know it's a little long) you will see that the Guttmacher survey was cited in the first paragraph only and was only used present how many schools teach sex ed and how they teach it. No conclusions were drawn from it. Really, for a conservative on this board to harp about slanted sources is truly astonishing.
Last edited by DCDAWG; 01-27-2005 at 11:25 AM.
It's interesting to hear differing points of view on "abstinence only" teaching vs what basically should be called "safe sex teaching" and whether or not one promotes or decreases teen sexual activity. Here's a personal perspective from my own experience growing up in a small community west of Sheveport. ( This was a long time ago.)
The high school was rather small by today's standards. Virtually everyone in the school (kids and teachers) was devout Christian, going mainly to the local Baptist, Methodist, and Church of Christ. And truly active in the church communities, singing in the choir, etc. etc. And going to church several times a week. In short we were very religious!!!!!
In school, our sex education was zero!! Nil!! Nada!!! My parents ( and from discussions with my peers, this applied to them as well) never taught us anything about sex, much less RESPONSIBLE sex.
But, by the time we were juniors and seniors, virtually all of us were sexually active. ( In a small school, it's not too hard to find out. ) Yet, to this day, I don't know of a single pregnancy that happened. In fact, a large group of us discussed this at a class reunion a few years ago. Why??? We all used condoms. We learned about them through the grapevine, etc. etc.
Remember that this was in the days when you had to go to the pharmacist and in a very embarrassed state ask him to "sell you some rubbers". They were all kept out of sight behind the counters. No displays, no ads!! And then pray that he didn't tell your parents!!!
Interestingly, the girls were the ones most adamant about using a condom. And so we did.
The reason I'm relating this is to show a least one illustration that I know is correct where lack of sex education and a "strongly but silently IMPLIED" program of abstinence did absolutely nothing to prevent teen age sex. It's built into humans and there's not much that can overcome those hormones.
The other point is that in spite of no "courses on condoms", and the fact that they were very difficult to purchase, we all somehow knew how to get them.
When I look back on all of this and ask myself if I might have been better off not participating, I have to say maybe. But on the other hand, if I realistically ask myself if anything would have changed my choices back then, I have to say no!
If the source didn't mean something to the Congressional Research Service they wouldn't have put it in the text. It would have been another footnote.
I realize what the quote was used for. It was almost unrelated to the rest of the (relatively short) article. I just harped about you saying that it doesn't matter where numbers come from. I have no issues with the article and it didn't really say enough to be slanted at all. In fact... It said that literally there was nothing to say on the matter. My point: sources matter. Undeniable.
If someone wants a legitimate article they should chose their source carefully. Relavence is not always the most important aspect of the source.
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