http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... sage_x.htm
Quote:
The federal government's "no sex without marriage" message isn't just for kids anymore.
Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.
The government says the change is a clarification. But critics say it's a clear signal of a more directed policy targeting the sexual behavior of adults.
"They've stepped over the line of common sense," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that supports sex education. "To be preaching abstinence when 90% of people are having sex is in essence to lose touch with reality. It's an ideological campaign. It has nothing to do with public health."
Abstinence education programs, which have focused on preteens and teens, teach that abstaining from sex is the only effective or acceptable method to prevent pregnancy or disease. They give no instruction on birth control or safe sex.
"I think the program should talk about the problem with out-of- wedlock childbearing — not about your sex life," Brown says. "If you use contraception effectively and consistently, you will not be in the pool of out-of-wedlock births."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00802.htmlQuote:
WASHINGTON -- States can use their U.S. grants for abstinence education to reach out to people in their 20s rather than just focusing on teenagers, new federal guidance says.
The guidelines for this year's $50 million program, known as Title V, include new wording about the populations that are the focus of the abstinence education. The age range cited is 12 through 29 years old.
"To be preaching at these adults a message of abstinence-only is absurd because it simply won't work," he said.
"If the goal is to reduce unintended pregnancies, there is something called birth control," Wagoner said. "And the government should be promoting it."
Abstinence is never going to happen. Period. People are going to continue to have sex because it's enjoyable and it's what they want to do. Why not help to make more birth control options easily available to people, and educate them on practicing safe sex? I'm so grateful for places like Planned Parenthood, who truely help people with low income to have birth control options made easily available to them.
Abstinence....Right.
And it has nothing to do with religion, too, I'm sure.
Do we dare ask what is on your mind? 
