My pro-abort sparring friend, columnist Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune, has weighed in on the Aurora Planned Parenthood situation.

And with a title like this, "In defense of Planned Parenthood's deceptions in Aurora: Sometimes the only way to get fairness will make your foes cry foul," you know madness is coming.

In fact, when I read Eric's piece about 2a this morning, I found so much wrong with it, I knew I'd never get to sleep if I gave it too much thought. So I closed it up, like a surgeon who has found a body overridden with cancer.

But I've already received two emails on Eric's column this morning from pro-life friends, so I can tell you're feeling feisty. In fact, John Jansen wrote me, "After reading it, I felt like the mosquito at the nudist colony: I simply don't know where to begin."

Ok, have at it....

Well of course Planned Parenthood representatives didn't tell the truth to Aurora city officials while they were building a new clinic in the western suburb....

They hid behind the name of a subsidiary company, Gemini Office Development, and were misleadingly vague when asked along the way about the identity of prospective tenants for the $7.5 million facility.

Their goal was straightforward: To open a reproductive-health clinic on land zoned for such purpose.

But they had to use a certain amount of stealth because abortion is one of the services Planned Parenthood offers. And foes of abortion rights, longtime losers in the battle for public opinion, traditionally raise all kinds of rukus when Planned Parenthood comes into a community.

The foes not only picket construction sites, but they also send picketers out to harass subcontractors at their homes and businesses, try to spread alarm and disgust in the immediate neighborhoods and attempt to browbeat civic officials into implementing just the sort of craven, politically motivated delays we're now seeing in Aurora.

Then when Planned Parenthood is revealed to have tried to prevent such pressure tactics by using a little creative subterfuge, the opponents of abortion-rights carry on indignantly, as though the deceptions were an effort to skirt the law.

In fact, the deceptions are an effort by Planned Parenthood to be sure the law is followed -- to be sure their plans and proposals are considered as though they came from an organization engaged in lawful activity. Which, in fact, they do.

But in order to get that sort of fair treatment, bitter experience tells them they have to skirt the notice of those in the community who feel compelled to try to impose on everyone their opposition to abortion.

That view is deeply held, but poll after poll shows that, even after all the picketing and haranguing and hurling of moral opprobrium in the last 34 years, roughly 2 out of 3 Americans still support Roe v. Wade -- the 1973 decision establishing a woman's constitutional right to choose to have an early-term abortion (see polling data).

Aurora is turning into an object lesson: City officials, who cheerfully signed off on plans for the 22,000 square-foot clinic and who have known of the Gemini/Planned Parenthood connection since at least the last week of July when local papers and the Tribune broke the story, have been in a complete dither in recent weeks since abortion foes have been trying to turn the town into the epicenter of this never-ending national debate

In a skittish collapse in the face of pressure from activists, the Aurora City Council ordered an independent review of the legality of the tactics Planned Parenthood employed to fly under the radar. And even though there's precious little to review -- this isn't a complicated case with reams of documents to pore over, after all, but a simple tale of misdirection -- the alleged probe has dragged unaccountably on and on.

Tuesday, as if to underscore exactly why Planned Parenthood can't be as upfront as Best Buy or Wal-Mart when it comes to a town, Aurora officials used the excuse of this ongoing investigation to prevent the clinic from opening on schedule.

Thursday, lawyers for Planned Parenthood and for Aurora will appear in front of U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle, who is expected to rule on Planned Parenthood's request for an injunction to allow the clinic to open.

The irony here is that Planned Parenthood, with its broad menu of low-cost services that also includes contraceptive counseling, pregnancy testing, adoption referrals and disease screening, almost certainly does more to lower the overall number of abortions (by providing the birth control that blocks unwanted pregnancies) and to save lives than all of the protests, prayer vigils and campaigns of harassment by its enemies put together.

Do you disagree? Then resolve to fight fair in the arenas of politics, law and public opinion. Until then, stop crying foul.

Jill, thanks for posting Eric Zorn's article. It was right on.

Gee Jill - you little health care professional, you, - you left off the stats at the end of Zorn's article, and why Illinois DESPERATELY needs Planned Parenthood:

Illinois Statistics1 - Teen Pregnancy

According to the Illinois Department of Public Aid Teen Parent Services, nearly 4,100 Illinois women younger than 19 draw public assistance every year because of teen pregnancy. In 2000, 11.4 percent of total Illinois births -- or 21,108 babies -- were born to teens. Illinois ranks 18th out of all states for teen birth rates; the Illinois birth rate of 60.0 per 1,000 teens is significantly higher than the national rate of 56.8. Chlamydia

In 2000, Illinois ranked third in number of cases and 19th for rate per 100,000 population among all states for Chlamydia infections. In 2000, Illinois adolescents ages 10 to 19 accounted for 12,957 cases of chlamydia (39 percent of total reported cases in Illinois). Gonorrhea

In 2000, Illinois ranked third for number of cases and 12th for rate per 100,000 population among all states for gonorrhea infections. In 2000, Illinois adolescents ages 10 to 19 accounted for 5,763 cases of gonorrhea (39 percent of total reported cases in Illinois). Syphilis

In 2000, Illinois adolescents ages 10 to 19 accounted for 61 cases of early syphilis (8 percent of total reported cases in Illinois). HIV/AIDS

The Centers for Disease Control statistics rank Illinois the sixth highest for reported AIDS cases among all 50 states.

in COLUMNS | Permalink

All of those diseases could easily be prevented, by these teens learning to simply abstain from sex.

Also, what health care can Planned Parenthood provide that cannot be provided at a hospital?

All of those diseases could easily be prevented, by these teens learning to simply abstain from sex.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yeah! Tell 'em that!
I'm sure they'll all stop immediately!

Well at least he's honest - Planned Parenthood DID intentionally mislead Aurora.

All of those diseases could easily be prevented, by these teens learning to simply abstain from sex. You post is more of a way to convince me that abstinence sex ed is the best sex ed than that more abortions, birth control pills, etc are needed. Obviously, comprehensive sex ed, condoms, and birth control pills aren't working, are they, or the teen pregnancy and disease rates wouldn't be so high.

Also, what health care can Planned Parenthood provide that cannot be provided at a hospital?

Posted by: Bethany at September 20, 2007 11:11 AM

........................................

Do you go to a hospital for your pap smears Bethany? i don't know about you but I go to my personal doctor. But I can afford to do so. I certainly wouldn't expect the emergency room to provide me with well check ups or provide me with birth control.
Quite obviously any teen with a brain in their head knows that not having sex will guarentee no pregnancy. This knowledge has never prevented teens from having sex and never will. Practicality dictates that teens need to be educated in preventions rather than left in the dark.

Gee, the Bush Administration issued warantless wiretaps and suspended Habeus Corpus in order to fight violent religious extremists.

You're shrieking at Planned Parenthood because their public disclosure notice was smaller than you would have liked?

Here's my comments to Zorn's article:

Mr. Zorn,

The story about Planned Parenthood in Aurora should be about the citizens of a community and their right to decide the future of their city. Yes, the central theme is abortion. The citizens have used peaceful and lawful means to express their desire to not have a 22,000 square foot building that performs abortions. That is why they used their legal right to express their opinions at the City of Aurora Council meetings. Go to u-Tube and see the videos available of these meetings. They are the ordinary, normal people who live in the community. The numbers of individuals supporting Pro-Life in our area are very high. Please don’t quote statistics from around the country. The facts in this case are shown in the number of people showing up to “protest” at the Planned Parenthood site and those who voice their opinions at the City Council. If you are going to report a story…..be correct about the facts.

The citizens are upset because Planned Parenthood did not give the city a chance to decide for themselves if they wanted a Planned Parenthood site in their shopping center next to their grocery store and homes. Everyone knows abortion is legal, we are very much aware of that fact. But it is also legal for a city’s citizens to have input to the planning of their community.

You said the people should “resolve to fight fair in the arenas of politics, law and public opinion.” Mr. Zorn, the community around Aurora has done EXCACTLY those three things, Please stop portraying the issue otherwise!

Do you go to a hospital for your pap smears Bethany? i don't know about you but I go to my personal doctor.

Actually, my personal doctor who does my pap smears is in the hospital.
And are pap smears limited to PP or not? Nope.

Quite obviously any teen with a brain in their head knows that not having sex will guarentee no pregnancy. This knowledge has never prevented teens from having sex and never will. Practicality dictates that teens need to be educated in preventions rather than left in the dark.

But knowledge of the different STD's and other information can be just one thing that can give them motivation to keep abstinent. There have been abstinence programs that have been highly effective in reducing the teen pregnancy rate AND STD's.

Is a decision being handed down today?
When will we know?

(It's always a good idea to have birth control access before Homecoming and Halloween...)

Yes, Laura, court is in progress right now. I'll let you know when I know.

Jill I hope you're not serious about Zorn being a friend. I don't know why I am drawn to read his garbage so regularly - maybe I'm trying to peek inside the soul of an athiest secular humanist to figure out what mental disorder he has. He regularly ticks me off with his opinions but today he really touched a nerve. The Bible says to pray for our enemies, and that's all we can do with the likes of Zorn and the others that spew their venom at those of us who value life. (just read the reader comments on the trib to see the comments about us "Bible thumpers"). I wonder if Eric Zorn ever looks at his children and thinks that if he wasn't in the mood for them at the time, he could have just as easily have them aborted?

Yeah! Tell 'em that!
I'm sure they'll all stop immediately!

Laura- I'm a 27-year-old virgin. My boyfriend is a 28-year-old virgin. My 4 best friends are virgins in their late 20's. My college boyfriend is a 33-year-old virgin. I have other friends that were sexually active, realized the fruitlessness of it, and have stopped. People are absolutely capable of making the smartest, healthiest choice. It's offensive to those of us that do when you imply that we can't or we don't. Everybody can. Some don't. Don't paint us with your brush.

I think this attitude that kids have no self-control is an excuse for adults that have no control. It makes them feel better about themselves to act like they're some sort of animal controlled by their biological urges. It's a cop-out.

By the way, we tell kids to just say no to drugs, not to smoke, stay away from gangs. We trust them to abstain from that, but not sex. Why is this?

Jacqueline, bravo!

Jacqueline,

Pithy! Very well said.

Kent, I'm not buddies with Eric, if that's what you're wondering. We wouldn't be able to sit together for 2 minutes without blood pressures rising, which doesn't bode well for bonding. But I do hold a certain affection - empathy - for him in his lostness.

But it is also legal for a city’s citizens to have input to the planning of their community.

Sure, but how far are you willing to extend that argument?

Can a community get together and plan "whites only" drinking fountains and public parks? What about segregated schools?

Can a community get together and outlaw the ownership of firearms?

The answer to these and other questions, of course, is no. Communities cannot band together and violate civil and constitutional rights of others.

Laura,

And by the way, Planned Parenthood programs have been shown to increase teen sexual activity and STD rates.

Looking for a reference for that as we speak, but I know it's true enough to say it before I can cite it...

Jacque- Did you say you have a PhD? That would be pretty young for a doctorate. I'll be 29 by the time I get mine.

"By the way, we tell kids to just say no to drugs, not to smoke, stay away from gangs. We trust them to abstain from that, but not sex. Why is this?"

This is such a great insight. I mean, kids are gonna smoke anyway, might as well give em a pack of super filtered cigarettes. That way they greatly reduce the risk of lung cancer. We want our children practicing safe smoking. God love you.

The Mounting Failure of Abstinence Education
By Amy DePaul
AlterNet

Thursday 31 May 2007

The Bush administration's point man for conservative - and often morality-driven - social policy, such as abstinence-only sex education, has resigned. But only time will tell whether his programs remain federal policy.

Last month's resignation of Wade Horn, former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and point man for conservative social policy, came just as support was crumbling and mistrust mounting for a costly and, many would argue, unsuccessful initiative - abstinence education.

"At this point we've spent more than a billion dollars on this program that was never proven in the first place," said Heather Boonstra, public policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization specializing in reproductive health issues.

Horn left government in early April for a private-sector position at Deloitte Consulting LLP after heading the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a division of HHS. There, Horn shepherded a host of contentious initiatives, for example: marriage promotion for poor women as an anti-poverty strategy, reduced access to higher education for welfare recipients, standardized testing of low-income preschoolers, programs to strengthen fatherhood by pushing matrimony and relationship skills, and chastity for 19- to 29-year-olds.

Many of these policies had come under fire over the years from members of Congress, feminists and advocates of low-income families - increasingly so in Horn's final months at HHS. But it was Horn's approach to sex education, with its prime emphasis on virtue, that drew the most opposition and suffered the most discrediting setbacks in the form of political defection and unfavorable research findings.

"Abstinence-Only"

Under Horn's leadership, abstinence education became "abstinence until marriage" or "ab-only" education, meaning that the curricula went beyond discouraging teen sex and instead targeted all sex outside marriage without explaining the preventive role of contraception. ("Abstinence-plus" education also discourages teen sexual activity but offers information on contraception and STD prevention.)

Last fall, a congressional report said abstinence-only education fed students false information about pregnancy and birth control, and in the last six months of Horn's tenure, six states announced they would no longer accept federal abstinence funds.

Then a study released in April found no evidence that abstinence-only programs deter sexual activity. Perhaps as a result of these events - and most certainly due in part to a Democrat-controlled House - funding for abstinence-only education will run out this summer without assurance of renewal.

"There seems to be increasing concern about spending money on abstinence-only education programs. We don't have evidence that they are successful," said Bill Albert, deputy director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "Over the past four to six months, when a number of states decided not to take the abstinence-only money ... it felt like a sea change."

Albert added that surveys show Americans support teen abstinence but want teens to get information on contraception as well, which is not an option under the current ACF approach.

"The American public sees abstinence and contraception as complementary strategies. They do not see them as conflicting strategies," Albert said.

Nonetheless, abstinence-only education is not expected to die quietly, particularly when several years of federal largesse have nurtured and empowered a coterie of professional chastity activists.

"The legacy of Wade Horn has to do with building up an entire movement in abstinence-only education. There are associations, clearing houses and a medical institute" devoted to the cause, Guttmacher's Boonstra said. "It's not the end. They are fighting hard. It remains to be seen whether policymakers are going to listen to the evidence."

The Growth of Abstinence-Only

Federal support for abstinence education - and for that matter many of the policies administered by ACF under Wade Horn - did not originate during the Bush presidency; in fact, many were created as part of the welfare reform package signed by President Clinton in 1996.

But since 2001, federal money allotted for abstinence education has risen from $73 million to $176 million currently.

These amounts fall short of the total money spent, however, since they don't factor in matching state funds.

HHS administers three large abstinence programs, with the majority of the money going to two funding streams at ACF, one of them to states and one directly to abstinence organizations. While funding for the states has remained at consistent levels (the median grant to states is estimated at $569,000), direct funding to community-based abstinence programs, which began under Horn's tenure, has risen dramatically. Initial funding was $20 million in 2001 and $104 million by 2005, with the median grant at $642,000. (A Washington Monthly article in 2002 referred to abstinence funding as "pork for prudes.")

The recent study that called these programs into question found that young people in abstinence-ed programs were no more likely to refrain from sex than their counterparts in a control group. The study was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research Inc., and it tracked the behavior of more than 2,000 youths in four different regions of the country over a four- to six-year period.

Expanding the Reach of Abstinence-Only

From the start of the Bush administration, ACF sought to expand the reach as well as the coffers of its abstinence initiative, making it increasingly inflexible and prohibiting states from applying the money toward programs that discuss contraception alongside abstinence (except to highlight condom failure). But restrictions further tightened in 2006, when ACF required abstinence programs to embody all, rather than just a portion of, the fed's eight principles of abstinence education, including the belief that premarital sex is psychologically harmful and that marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity.

The eight points of an abstinence program served as the key criteria for review by ACF when awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in grants; meanwhile, the scientific validity of the information presented in the programs was not examined, according to a congressional report last fall. The report, "Abstinence Education: Efforts to Assess the Accuracy and Effectiveness of Federally Funded Programs,"was released in 2006 by the Government Accountability Office.

The report concluded that ACF made no effort to ensure the accuracy of claims by abstinence programs and that the programs spread false information as a result. For example, according to the report, one program taught that condoms are porous and allow the HIV virus to pass through them.

More Setbacks

The GAO report, however, was only one of many setbacks to abstinence-only education. Another was the gaffe that occurred last year when ACF clarified that federal abstinence-education money should target people in their 20s and not just teens. Foes were quick to point to the futility of such an effort, citing government figures that more than 90 percent of adults ages 20-29 have had sexual intercourse.

"This idea that you're going to promote abstinence for people age 20-29 is simply unrealistic," said Stephanie Coontz, director of research and publication education at the Council on Contemporary Families. "This was a total capitulation to the wing of the movement that believes that any sexual relationship outside of marriage is immoral and must not be allowed."

By March of this year, six states had declined HHS abstinence-only education altogether, citing the rigid restrictions and lack of evidence of success. Academic studies also drew attention to the nuances of chastity vows and their lack of effectiveness with older teens. In 2001, Columbia University professor Peter Bearman found that younger teens who took a pledge to remain chaste until marriage, presumably a highly committed cohort, delayed sex by a year to 18 months. However, a followup study in 2005 showed that 88 percent of these same youths eventually broke their vows.

Marriage as the New Social Policy

In addition to abstinence-only education, Horn likely will be most known for his advocacy of marriage and his success in introducing marriage as social policy. At ACF, Horn oversaw a lucrative funding stream to promote marriage and teach marriage skills, which have been funded for a five-year initiative to the tune of $100 million in grant money every year. First-year funding was awarded last year.

Marriage promotion originated as a faith-based policy to promote a moral lifestyle, but it also drew support from economic conservatives who argued that marriage could relieve poverty and curb social problems such as crime and educational underachievement.

Feminists and sociologists challenged this idea on a number of grounds, saying that repeatedly telling poor women that marriage is the answer to their problems could influence them to stay in abusive relationships. Economists have also pointed out that poor women often have few marriage prospects because the men in their communities are more likely to be in jail or in low-wage jobs.

"Lack of marriage is not so much the cause of poverty as it is a result of poverty," Coontz said, adding that in promoting traditional matrimony, Horn's policies failed to address the full spectrum of families that are increasingly the norm in America.

"I think it's important to help people have good marriages, but we need to recognize in the real world, where so many kids are born out of wedlock and almost half of all marriages end in divorce, that it's wishful thinking and dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket," she said. She added that some of the marriage grants have gone to self-proclaimed relationship experts who lack appropriate qualifications.

Follow the Money

Jennifer Tucker, the vice president of the Center for Women Policy Studies, was especially blunt about the spending issues related to marriage policy. What is most objectionable about it, she said, is that it hijacks funds intended for poverty relief to programs that target the general public. Further, she added, marriage is becoming entrenched social policy, with four more years of funding ensured.

Tucker calls marriage programming, "the biggest social program we have," one that has grown more robust as welfare has diminished.

"Marriage is now just getting in there. I think it's now hitting its stride," Tucker said, citing six state legislatures that in the last year passed their own marriage programs, apparently inspired by the federal example. "It's hard for policymakers to speak out against marriage right now."

Meanwhile, she noted, a cottage industry of marriage experts and relationship skill experts has been created and nurtured by federal spending - by the same people who claim to dislike fiscal profligacy.

"Welfare is big government. Well, this is big government, too," Tucker said.

Generous on Virtue, Stingy on Welfare

Not surprisingly, the legislation that lavished money on many of the virtue-based programs that Wade Horn administered - that is, welfare reform in 1996 - has proven parsimonious when it comes to supporting welfare.

Last year, for example, single mothers receiving welfare who were pursuing four- or, more likely, two-year degrees, were largely ordered to abandon their studies. The change was a result of new ACF restrictions that increased the number of hours required at menial jobs in order to comply with a work-first mandate.

In the past, states had used a variety of measures to allow welfare recipients to continue their studies, but new federal rules put an end to state flexibility, thus postponing higher education for many women who were seeking a better life for their families. Without at least a two-year degree, low-income single mothers are much less likely to command a livable wage and health benefits upon leaving welfare, making economic self-sufficiency that much more elusive.

"This is just mean-spirited," Tucker said.

Father Superior

While welfare reform, marriage promotion and abstinence-only education drew headlines, another Horn initiative went largely unnoticed. Horn's effort to improve fatherhood in America, which had just been funded at $50 million annually for five years, met criticism shortly before his resignation. The National Organization for Women filed a complaint with HHS in March, charging that some fatherhood grant recipients provided educational opportunities and employment services to men only and were thus discriminatory.

The fatherhood initiative also was criticized for favoring programs that focused on marriage - Horn's true priority - rather than responsible parenting. In addition, Horn's office awarded a $1 million fatherhood grant to the National Fatherhood Institute, which he founded and ran from 1993-2001 before joining the Bush administration, sparking complaints about cronyism.

Horn also met resistance in his requirement of standardized testing of low-income preschoolers enrolled in Head Start. The testing, which began in 2003, was widely criticized by researchers and teachers as unnecessary and inappropriate, according to Sarah Greene, president and CEO of the National Head Start Association. With so many varieties of children's backgrounds represented in Head Start, including non-English speakers, a single test was considered unworkable, Greene said.

Behind the testing dispute was a greater fear, however: that of reducing or eliminating Head Start. While that fear eventually subsided, and Horn recently restructured Head Start for the better, Greene said, his early years left many of the program's teachers and advocates feeling threatened, and with good reason.

"Initially the first announcement of the assessment was threatening. It said that, based on certain lack of outcomes, the actual contract of the grant could be terminated," Greene said. The test came to be perceived as a way to shut down a Head Start or fire a teacher. Currently, legislators in both the House and Senate have launched efforts to end standardized testing in Head Start.

Unlike with Head Start, it's not likely that recent changes in Congress or even a new administration could easily wash away Horn's footprint on the issue of marriage policy, which appears to be entrenched at the federal level and making its way into the states. Time and political wherewithal will answer the question of whether abstinence-until-marriage and abstinence-only remain federal policy.

--------

Amy DePaul is a writer and college instructor who lives in Irvine, Calif. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post and many other newspapers.

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“Comprehensive” Sex Education is Ineffective: Abstinence Works, Major National Study Shows

By Elizabeth O’Brien

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, June 13, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A major report on teen sex education, released by Dr. Stan Weed of the Institute for Research and Evaluation in Salt Lake City, shows why abstinence is the most successful method of preventing physical and emotional complications resulting from pre-marital sexual activity. His research is based on the results of many studies that have followed the education and behavior of over 400,000 adolescents in 30 different states for 15 years (see http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007_docs/CompSexEd.pdf).

The final report, entitled “Abstinence” or “Comprehensive” Sex Education? begins by pointing out the flaws in a national study on abstinence released by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Conducted in April 2007, this previous study examined the progress of teens who participated in four different abstinence education programs. The final report indicated that abstinence education was ineffective and that young adolescents should receive “comprehensive” sex education, that is, sex-education that teaches about various sexual behaviors and “safe-sex” methods.

After examining the Mathematica study’s methods, the Institute found several major errors that made the study non-representative of American sex education. First, says the more recent study, it took sample teens from “high-risk” sectors of the population, such as poor African or American single-parent households. During the study, young people received abstinence education in pre-adolescence, but then received no follow-up training during adolescence. They were also examined about their sexual activity several years after any learning might have taken effect.

Dr. Stan Weed told LifeSiteNews.com: “Within the United States, sexual activity rates have been going down among teenagers for about the last 12 or 13 years, and that coincides with when the abstinence education started. Abortion, pregnancies and out of wedlock births rates have also been going down among teens during that same time period. However, pregnancy, abortion and out of wedlock births have been rising for the older age group, between 19-25, a group that has not been targeted by abstinence programs.”

Outlining these limitations and the report’s inaccuracies, Dr. Weed highlighted the problems that sexually active teens encounter and the failure of “comprehensive” sex education to remedy such issues. These include teen pregnancy, STD’s and poor emotional health. Sexually active young people are also more often physically assaulted or raped.

“Comprehensive” sex education also fails to explain the limitation of condoms, said the recent study, pointing out that “many consequences of teen sexual activity are not prevented by condom use.” Condoms are never a total guarantee against STD’s, and so there is no kind of truly “safe” sex outside of marriage. Secondly, despite 20 years of sex education, young people even fail to use condoms consistently. Most importantly, however, condoms do nothing to prevent the heartbreak, depression and low self-esteem caused by sexual activity.

The Utah Institute researchers also investigated previous major studies on “comprehensive” sex education and found that these programs had little impact on the behavior of teens during their education and no long-term effects whatsoever. In fact, “of 50 rigorous studies spanning the past 15 years, only one of them reports an improvement in consistent condom use after a period of at least one year.”

When evaluating abstinence programs, the Institute investigated both high-risk and moderate-risk students in programs such as Reasons of the Heart, Heritage Keepers, Sex Respect and Teen Aid. Students in these programs were far less likely to be sexually active and those who were reduced their sexual activity by a large percentage. In the Reasons of the Heart study, for example, researchers found that “adolescent program participants were approximately one half as likely as the matched comparison group to initiate sexual activity after one year. The program’s effect was as strong for the African American subgroup in the sample as it was overall.”

The most successful abstinence programs were those that emphasized the risk of pre-marital sexual activity. They showed how abstinence fully protects a young person from STD’s, teen pregnancy and emotional trauma. They underlined the importance of self-control and responsibility and gave students the positive goal of a stable and committed marriage towards which to work in future. At the same time, however, researchers also found that it was crucial to re-educate adolescents about abstinence each successive year.

Dr. Weed concludes, “Well-designed and well-implemented abstinence education programs can reduce teen sexual activity by as much as one half for periods of one to two years, substantially increasing the number of adolescents who avoid the full range of problems related to teen sexual activity. Abandoning this strategy…would appear to be a policy driven by politics rather than by a desire to protect American teens.”

These results are consistent with many other findings, including a 2005 study by Medical Issues Analyst Reginald Finger of Focus on the Family. He investigated over 7,000 people in the United States that indicated the many social and emotional benefits to remaining abstinent. (see http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/may/05050607.html).

READ THE ORIGINAL STUDY:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007_docs/CompSexEd.pdf

See Related Coverage:

Bush: Abstinence Only 100 % Effective Means of Preventing Pregnancy, HIV, STDs
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06062308.html

Abstinence Alone Protects Fully Against HIV, Ugandan First Lady Tells Youth
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/dec/06120601.html

Abstinence Education Works - New Report Offers More Evidence
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/dec/04121004.html

Hey Jill,

Why does Eric cry 'foul', when over and over on these boards we expressly note that by far PP's condoms are the worst ... for the very reason that their poor quality is guaranteed to be backed-up with abortion and the law. How come PP's condoms are no quality-controlled?

And Laura thinks abstinence-only doesn't work in the USA. She's right, but doesn't dare ask why ... because it is sure working in Uganda. Maybe just maybe the problem is not with this program, but on how much it will NOT be supported - by Laura and other free-thinkers. Problem is, there is no future for them, but saying NO guarantees a future without AIDS, other STD's, and unplanned pregnancy. Super rewards ... coupled with the threat of death ... seems to be a no-brainer in my books!

And maybe, just maybe we give the message that we expect our youth to fail .... at being innocent, at being non-killers, at being truthful vs spin-doctoring Eric Zorn-style.

and this rant can go on and on ...

The answer to these and other questions, of course, is no. Communities cannot band together and violate civil and constitutional rights of others.

Touche, anonymous choicer. Good argument.

Now, the constitutionality of abortion aside, people do weild influence over what they allow in their vicinities. Case in point: Pornography is protected under the first amendment, but I would fight tooth and nail to keep a porn shop out of my neighborhood for the protection of myself and my children. There is a correlation between pornography and sexual assault, especially with children. So, while I may be accused of violating the constitutional rights of the smut peddlers and smut seekers, I can in good conscience do so for the greater good of protecting the innocent.

Now, in 1973 the Supreme Court erroneously decided that abortion was protected in the constitution, "um...somewhere, in the there, somewhere, Griswold, 15th ammendment, blah, blah, blah." But for the same reasons I oppose the porn peddlers, I oppose Planned Parenthood. In the case of porn, I risk women and children being hurt. In the case of Planned Parenthood, there's a guarentee women and children will be hurt. I have a moral obligation to protect them in light of the SCOTUS decision. Likewise, I would have continued by fight for abolition in light of the Dred Scot decision.

Did you say you have a PhD?

I wish! I haven't even taken my comps yet. I'm still a student (and part-time at that). I'm going full-time in the Spring and hope to be out in 3 years (by 30).

Are you in grad school also?

My last name is Harvey if you have Facebook. I'd love to be friends. :)

"Are you in grad school also?"

Yeah, I'm a doctoral candidate in mathematics. Unfortunately I don't have a facebook account. My wife does, but not me. This is like the third time this week that not having a facebook account has come up. Perhaps it is time I cave in and get one...

Mathematics? I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy... :)

I am your sign to get a Facebook account! Facebook is a great way to keep connected with lifers all over the country.I also hope you'll ask your wife to add me. I bet she's a swell lady.

You know, I assumed you were monastic. That's because a priest is the only person I know that ends his conversations with "God Love You." :)

P.S. Pretty In Pink has a facebook, too. We could all be virtual buddies!

Laura- I'm a 27-year-old virgin. My boyfriend is a 28-year-old virgin. My 4 best friends are virgins in their late 20's. My college boyfriend is a 33-year-old virgin. I have other friends that were sexually active, realized the fruitlessness of it, and have stopped. People are absolutely capable of making the smartest, healthiest choice. It's offensive to those of us that do when you imply that we can't or we don't. Everybody can. Some don't. Don't paint us with your brush.

I think this attitude that kids have no self-control is an excuse for adults that have no control. It makes them feel better about themselves to act like they're some sort of animal controlled by their biological urges. It's a cop-out.

By the way, we tell kids to just say no to drugs, not to smoke, stay away from gangs. We trust them to abstain from that, but not sex. Why is this?

Posted by: Jacqueline at September 20, 2007 12:19 PM

........................
I certainly hope that you realize that virgins can get develop cervical cancer and you go for yearly paps. If you don't have health insurance you can go to PP for your exams.

My comment and Mr. Zorn's reply:

But they had to use a certain amount of stealth because abortion is one of the services Planned Parenthood offers. And foes of abortion rights, longtime losers in the battle for public opinion, traditionally raise all kinds of rukus when Planned Parenthood comes into a community.

It is precisely because of this ruckus, that the people of Aurora had a right to know what was moving in...

Instead of asking the question
"Do you want a Planned Parenthood" in your neighborhood, you need to ask "Do you want picketers and protesters next to your Dominics and on your street if you happen to share it with a Planned Parenthood Employee"?

But obviously, you feel that the end justifies the means.
Lying to city officials is perfectly acceptable, if it means getting your own way, citizens be damned.

And Eric, you hate the idea of pro-lifers picketing and causing "a ruckus"? Well, we hate the idea that 45 million babies have died in this country, including 85% of those with down syndrome, simply because you want to "play" with no consequences. To us, that's genocide.

You have a column in the Chicago Tribune to express your views. Air conditioning in the summer, heat in the winter...comfy chair...We have to stand out on the street in sub zero weather, pouring rain and blinding heat to express ours.

If you could stop us, you would. If we did something illegal or questionable, you'd jump on the chance to use it? Doubt that? Then look at Schiedler vs. NOW. That's exactly what they did. If we can stop Planned Parenthood, we will. No subterfuge. No deception. No cowardly hiding behind a false pretext...Abortion is wrong. We're against it. And we'll fight tooth and nail to stop it.

If we were deluding ourselves into believing that this was not about abortion, I don't think that thousands of us would be holding STOP ABORTION NOW signs...we'd be holding YOU BROKE THE LAW signs...

You think it's ironic that Planned Parenthood, with its broad menu of low-cost services that also includes contraceptive counseling, pregnancy testing, adoption referrals and disease screening, almost certainly does more to lower the overall number of abortions (by providing the birth control that blocks unwanted pregnancies) ?

Well I think it's ironic that millions of tax payers money is spent to murder infants. I think it's ironic that after 34 years of your "miracle"birth control, 4,000 women a day are aborting their offspring. If birth control is the answer, then what was the question? Because it ain't workin!

Bottom line? Planned Parenthood lied. (What a surprise) and we are thrilled to have been handed a way to fight them on a silver platter...

Then resolve to fight fair in the arenas of politics, law and public opinion.

Which is exactly what we are doing. And we can't thank Planned Parenthood enough for giving us a way to do just that...

Ain't America Great?

ZORN REPLY -- The reasoning that "we will cause a ruckus, therefore the people have a right to block an otherwise legal and otherwise quiet business from opening is utterly circular.

Posted by: mk hastings | Sep 20, 2007 5:54:54 AM

And my counter reply?

"Viva la Circle"

"I am your sign to get a Facebook account!"

Yeah, I think I'm gonna cave. I'll maybe do it by tomorrow or this weekend. Should be fun...

In the meantime, I must pick up some friends from the Boston airport. Maybe I'll run into Jasper while I'm down there. Talk to ya'll later, God love you.

Abstinence-only has never been the policy in Uganda:

U.S. officials describe their strategy in Uganda as “ABC”—a popular acronym standing for “Abstinence, Be Faithful, use Condoms.” Some experts credit the “ABC” strategy with helping to reduce HIV prevalence in Uganda from about 15% in the early 1990s, to less than 10% today. However, Human Rights Watch’s new report documents how condoms are left out of the equation, especially for young people.

A draft “Abstinence and Being Faithful (AB)” policy released in November 2004 by the Uganda AIDS Commission cautions that providing information about condoms alongside abstinence can be “confusing” to youth. Teachers told Human Rights Watch that they have been instructed by U.S. contractors not to discuss condoms in schools because the new policy is “abstinence only.” President Museveni has publicly condemned condoms as inappropriate for Ugandans, leading some AIDS educators to stop talking about them.

Uganda faces a nationwide condom shortage due to new government restrictions on condom imports. In late 2004, the Health Ministry recalled batches of imported condoms, allegedly due to failed quality control tests. Instead of addressing the shortage, some ministers suggested that Ugandans adopt abstinence as a preferable HIV-prevention strategy.

“Uganda is gradually removing condoms from its HIV/AIDS strategy, and the consequences could be fatal,” said Tony Tate, a researcher with Human Rights Watch’s Children’s Rights Division and the report’s co-author. “Delaying sex is surely a healthy choice for young Ugandans, but youth have a right to know that there are other effective means of HIV prevention.”

The U.S. government has already budgeted approximately U.S. $8 million this year on abstinence-only programs in Uganda as part of President George W. Bush’s global AIDS plan. The National Youth Forum, headed by Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni, a vocal proponent of abstinence-only, has received U.S. funding under the plan. The First Lady has lashed out against groups that teach young people about condoms and called for a national “virgin census” to support her abstinence agenda. The Virginia-based Children’s AIDS Fund, an organization with close ties to Janet Museveni, was recently approved for a major abstinence-only grant, despite having been deemed “not suitable for funding” by a technical panel of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“Abstinence-only programs are a triumph of ideology over public health,” said Cohen. “Americans should demand that HIV-prevention programs worldwide stick to science.”

Uganda gained a reputation in the 1990s for its high-level leadership against HIV/AIDS and acceptance of sexually candid HIV-prevention messages. But public health experts and Ugandan AIDS organizations fear that the shift toward abstinence-only programs will reverse this success. Abstinence programs have been used since 1981 in the United States, where they have proven in numerous independent studies to be ineffective and potentially harmful.

Contribute to Human Rights Watch

mk, I believe that's "rukus" according to the spell check deprived Zorn.

using a little creative subterfuge Gotta love that line - although the three letter word "lie" is a better choice for clarity.

What if the deceptively named "New Life Corp." built a crematorium across the street from your house? And lied on the permit, saying that they weren't sure who they'd be renting the building out to, even though Urns R Us owned them? Would someone want to know how that got approved? There's nothing wrong with a crematorium, but the traffic from funerals and other things would affect property values.

What if someone wanted to open a health clinic next door to your house - but it's not just any health clinic, it's one that provides mental counseling to re-offending child molestors, or a clinic determined to stop the spread of AIDS by handing out free heroin syringes. But they put on their application with the city that they were a "support group for men"? Would one have the right to be outraged then?

The city has a right to plan their town. They asked for disclosure, and were lied to.

And "public notice" of the Gemini/PP link wasn't actually public notice to the city of Aurora, as it was not published in a local paper. BTW - public notice is for the GOVERNMENT to notify the PUBLIC, not the other way around.

Sally-

I certainly hope that you realize that virgins can get develop cervical cancer and you go for yearly paps. If you don't have health insurance you can go to PP for your exams.

My likelihood of developing cervical cancer is substantially lower than yours, since I don't let potentially-HPV infected penises of strangers close to my cervix. My NFP only Catholic OBGYN does my paps, though. Thanks for your (fake) concern. Now answer how my having sex would make me better off?

Yeah, I think I'm gonna cave. I'll maybe do it by tomorrow or this weekend. Should be fun...

I see the headline now, "Local man succumbs to Facebook trend." :)

Okay, I'm a fuddy duddy (case in point: I just used the word fuddy duddy).
Is Facebook better than MySpace? Because I got a MySpace page and I totally hate that whole system.

And how embarrassing is it that a woman under the age of thirty is asking this question?

"Now answer how my having sex would make me better off?"

If you have to ask, you'd never understand.

Planned Barrenhood is not needed in ANY way. Real health care (where care does not equal ripping baby's arms off) is available at legitimate clinics, hospitals and crisis pregnancy centers.

To celebrate this victory over Planned Barrenhood I propose the opening of a new crisis pregnancy center in the Chicago area!

Awww, Hal. Shallow, Shallow Hal.

Sally's point was that even I can get cervical cancer. My point was that I might still get cervical cancer, but I'm less likely to- and less likely to get a host of diseases she chooses to swim in by being promiscuous.

Sex does make life better, but only if it's not laced with heartache, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, genital warts, loss of self-respect, the clap, abandonment, HIV, herpes, ad nauseum. When it's a monogamous married relationship, sex is laced with bliss, not blisters. So how would I be better off having sex for sex sake when it comes with all that unnecessary junk, when I can have sex in marriage with all of the perks and none of the downsides?

Ask someone with AIDS if that orgasm was worth it. Tell me what they say.

Sex does make life better, but only if it's not laced with heartache, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, genital warts, loss of self-respect, the clap, abandonment, HIV, herpes, ad nauseum. When it's a monogamous married relationship, sex is laced with bliss, not blisters. So how would I be better off having sex for sex sake when it comes with all that unnecessary junk, when I can have sex in marriage with all of the perks and none of the downsides?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yeah, because we all know that no married person ever had an unplanned crisis pregnancy, HPV, loss of self-respect, the clap, abandonment, HIV or herpes, and marriage is always "bliss."
There's never a "downside" once you get that magic Voodoo piece of paper...

I really don't have an objection to individuals making the choice to wait until marriage. It's a free country and all that. However, for me and many many others, the benefits of sex before (or after) marriage outweigh the risks.

Laura,

Yeah, because we all know that no married person ever had an unplanned crisis pregnancy, HPV, loss of self-respect, the clap, abandonment, HIV or herpes, and marriage is always "bliss."

If I marry someone with my same sexual morality, then, yeah, none of those things we befall me. If he didn't sleep around prior to marrying me and remains faithful, there will be no diseases, every pregnancy is a celebration, not a crisis, it's harder to abandon someone you're legally connected to, and my self-respect as a woman very particular about who gets to sleep with remains unchanged. Marriage is a divine, covenental sacrament- not a peace of paper. It's more powerful than magic or voodoo.

Face it, Laura. My choices set the tone for a better life. Choosing to have sex without commitment or fidelty sets the tone for nothing but unnecessary problems.

Milehimama,

Facebook has it's advantages over Myspace and vice versa- that's why I have both.

However, for me and many many others, the benefits of sex before (or after) marriage outweigh the risks.

For you and many others, you defer the risks to your children. If there's an unwanted pregnancy, they are the ones that are killed, not you.

Since killing my kids ain't an option, I'll abstain from creating them until they can have a stable, two-parent home.

"For you and many others, you defer the risks to your children. If there's an unwanted pregnancy, they are the ones that are killed, not you."

That's not completely true. As you previously pointed out, there are risks of sex for the people involved, in addition to to the risk of pregnancy.

I have an unrelated questions you guys can probably answer. I just read in a medical record indicating that a woman had previously had a "theraputic abortion." I don't know what that means. I googled it, and it was a term used when abortion was illegal in the US. What does it mean now? (this woman is in her 20s.)

nevermind, I found it.

Main Entry: therapeutic abortion
Function: noun
: abortion induced when pregnancy constitutes a threat to the physical or mental health of the mother

"If I marry someone with my same sexual morality, then, yeah, none of those things we befall me."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tell that to Mrs. Taggart...

"For you and many others, you defer the risks to your children. If there's an unwanted pregnancy, they are the ones that are killed, not you."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yes, married people never have unplanned pregnancies or abortions.

Since when does a pregnancy have to be planned to be good, wanted, or rejoiced in?

Unplanned pregnancy (and baby) does not = miserable life.

Laura- pay attention!

I said I don't have unplanned pregnancies or abortions. Me. Not married people in general, although it is much less likely (far fewer married people have abortions than single people). 88% of abortions are to single women. So if only married women aborted, we'd have 75% of abortion clinics out of business.

All you can do is cut and paste from the internet or repeat what people say. It's inane and infuriating.

And Hal, monogamous people don't have those risks. Two unmarried people that have only had sex with eachother and remain faithful are almost guarenteed not to get an STD. Two married people that had sex with others before marriage or have sex with others while married can bring home STDs. It's about monogamy- and my monogamy begins with marriage for the sake of myself and my family.

You think sex is worth risking your life and health over. I don't- especially when I can have all the sex I want without risking my life or health.

Milehimama, thank you for pointing that out.

I don't have unplanned pregnancies because my pregnancies will be expected (if I have sex, I can expect to get pregnant at some point). All my pregnancies will also be rejoiced in. Fertility isn't something to be turned on and off. It's a gift that some people don't have. I certainly hope I have it. There's no greater blessing than a whole quiver full of children.

Unplanned pregnancy (and baby) does not = miserable life.

Posted by: Milehimama at September 20, 2007 3:52 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Funny, about a million women a year would say that it does equal a miserable life.
For me it would equal a miserable life.

"You think sex is worth risking your life and health over. I don't- especially when I can have all the sex I want without risking my life or health."

Because of your decisions, you can only have all the sex you want once you get married. You've had several years (at least) of not having all the sex you want already. (maybe you don't want any, that's okay too) I don't know too many people who look back on their 20s and wish they had less sex.

And, yes, I believe that the benefits of sex before marriage greatly outweigh the risks to my life and health. (hypothetically, I'm past the point where this question matters to me personally)

I like to swim in the ocean, but there is a small risk of bad things happening. (sharks, drowning, big waves, broken bones, ugly eels, stepping on sharp things, etc) I wouldn't stop swimming in the ocean because of the risks, although I'd try to be careful. I enjoy sex much more than swimming in the ocean.

Unless you believe that sex is somehow immoral, or you are particulary risk-adverse, I can't imagine making a different choice.

Laura,
You don't speak for everybody.

and

How sad...I'm sorry that you feel you are unable to open your heart to a child and the unexpected love that brings.

I hope you find healing for whatever has hurt you.

Hal,
You are missing the emotional factor as well. Women are often emotionally hurt from flings and interludes that go nowhere.

The fallout and damage isn't just physical, and it doesn't always manifest itself right away.

"Women are often emotionally hurt from flings and interludes that go nowhere."

Some women perhaps. Not all women. And for those women, maybe there would be less of "hurt" if people wouldn't assert all the time that sex is immoral.

Finally, as for "interludes that go nowhere," it should be remembered it's the journey and not the destination that's important.

How sad...I'm sorry that you feel you are unable to open your heart to a child and the unexpected love that brings.

I hope you find healing for whatever has hurt you.

Posted by: Milehimama at September 20, 2007 4:18
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have a small flock of emus.
They are evil-tempered and foul smelling and occasionally escape in the middle of the night.
I think they're hilarious and love them dearly.
Why is it that I can understand that emus aren't for everyone and won't make everybody happy, but you can't understand why kids won't do it for me?

As of last year, family homes with children under 18 became the minority in this country. Being childfree makes many, many people happy.

One day I hope you find healing for whatever hurt some emu caused you.
I hope you will be able to open your heart to the unexpected love that only an emu can bring...

I really want an emu, but I live in an apartment. :-(

I don't want children, and its not because of some hurt or emotional problem I have. It's just my preference.

I'd rather have cats. They treat you as equals and are excellent judges of character.

I'm fond of my children, but not the pets. The children, however, insist on pets. I'm stuck with both.

I really want an emu, but I live in an apartment. :-(

I don't want children, and its not because of some hurt or emotional problem I have. It's just my preference.

Posted by: JKeller at September 20, 2007 4:38 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The more educated and affluent a woman is, the less likely it is that she'll have chidren.
There was a study about this 4-5 years ago in Time magazine. Some of the healthiest and happiest people in America are childless women over 40. (Of course, all of THOSE women owned at least one emu...)

Milehi/Jacque...

Why is it so sad to you that a woman doesn't want to have babies? Why must you feel that Laura is to be pitied because she has no desire to get pregnant, give birth, and be a mother? I swear, it's really sad that sometimes childless-by-choice women get ragged on by women who have and want children just because they want to pursue other, more important things (in their eyes). It's really condescending. I'm not angry, I just see a continuing theme of childless, career-oriented women who don't want children getting "scolded" in a pitying way for not "opening up their hearts". What if Laura has dreamed her whole life of a career that doesn't allow one much time to be home to help take care of kids? Is it so wrong for her dream to fill up her heart? Why must a woman always be expected to want children? I know I have never been particularly fond of children, and I'm ambivalent about ever having any. There's nothing wrong with me not wanting them. It's society that has the problem when it expects me to want to have them automatically.

Jacqueline and Milehi, believe me, I respect your views on fertility and having children. I'm glad that you can embrace your fertility and feel that you want many children. Just don't rag on other women that don't have the same sentiments you do about having kids. I don't feel the same way about fertility as you do. I consider it to be just another biological function, and an unnecessary one at that, since it isn't important for the survival of the individual organism. If I want to postpone my fertility, I should be able to. I respect your views on NFP and the like, and perhaps will pursue using it someday if I find that it isn't too restrictive. I just feel like you make people like Laura, and currently myself, feel as if they're un-women for not wanting children. My ability to have children is not what makes me valuable as a woman. :/

But go you, Jacqueline, I'm so impressed by your education. Good luck with the rest of your schooling. I have a lot of it ahead of me. And I'm not even in grad school yet. :)

Unless you believe that sex is somehow immoral, or you are particulary risk-adverse, I can't imagine making a different choice.

Non-marital sex is absolutely immoral, but you underestimate the magnitude of those risks for people other than yourself. As a man, besides the fact that a woman can kill your child and you'd have no say in that matter (not that this is of consequence to you anyway- you're all for abortion), the risks to your life and health are minimal. Pay some child support- take a kid to Disneyland a couple weekends a year, get called a virile stud for your ability to charm women into the sack. It doesn't sound to bad, eh?

Perhaps because you can't get pregnant and be left alone to raise a child, you don't have to suffer immense pain making an adoption plan, your fertility is not likely to be affected by an STD, your ability to pursue an education or a career isn't limited by pregnancy, you don't care if your children are raised by an institution instead of a parent, you don't care if the kids suffer with abandonment issues because Dad doesn't live with them, you don't care about being committed to someone by force that you didn't like enough to commit to by choice because you are raising a child together (albeit in a dysfunctional environment).

You may not know this about me, Hal, but I am a badass. I got where I am because I didn't risk my future on drugs, alcohol or sex. All of the above are fun- but none of them were worth the consequences to my life and my children's lives. Now that I'm all grown up, out of school, plenty of money, could work from home, I still wouldn't risk getting pregnant for the sake of my children having a stable, married home. It's not that I'm risk-adverse. It's more about my children than anything- but I can definitely say I have benefitted immensely from not allowing myself to be an inflatable doll to guys like you.

You've had several years (at least) of not having all the sex you want already.
Your point is? Yes, I haven't had sex- but I have 2, going on 3 degrees (not 2, going on 3 illegitimate children), a successful career (not a welfare check), date men that like me for who I am (not what I give up), never worry about a missed period, don't poison myself with hormones, never freak out waiting for results from an AIDS test, never had an abortion, never slept with someone that never called me back, never had my heartbroken by someone that I gave myself to physically, and I know that I control my body and its urges- it doesn't control me. I wouldn't say that I've missed out on anything- and neither would my boyfriend or my friends. We're quite grateful to have been spared the heartbreak and other problems that we've seen the "liberated" suffer from.

I don't know too many people who look back on their 20s and wish they had less sex.
I reitterate: Ask someone with AIDS if that orgasm was worth it. Tell me what they say.

Yeah! One more word and I'll send Lyssie to straighten you out!

(Thanks Lyssie)

You may not know this about me, Hal, but I am a badass. I got where I am because I didn't risk my future on drugs, alcohol or sex.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You and your friends sound about as exciting as oatmeal and dry toast.

(Why do I picture all of her sexless male friends in their 30s looking like that guy in the "Leave Britney Alone!" video?)

"...date men that like me for who I am (not what I give up)" The fact that you see it that way speaks volumes. Sex is not "giving up" anything.

However, I don't know why we're arguing here. I have no problem with the choice you made. If you're happy, I'm fine with it. I do think you're underestimating the benefits and overestimating the negatives. That's your decision.

Hal: The fact that you see it that way speaks volumes. Sex is not "giving up" anything.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I caught that too.
Not only have I never given up, I've been known to aggressively pursue.

Here's another line that shows a misunderstanding of what sex is about: "I have benefitted immensely from not allowing myself to be an inflatable doll to guys like you." (not to mention a real misunderstanding about me--"Guys like you" indeed! ;) )

So the pro-aborts say that we need PP because they throw condoms at kids in an effort to slow the spread of STDs. Well, if all they did was throw condoms at kids and not kill babies, a lot fewer people would object to their presence. Wise up, Laura.

"wise up, Laura." My, that's a bit condensceding isn't it? I know, killing babies bad.

Do you go to a hospital for your pap smears Bethany? i don't know about you but I go to my personal doctor.

Actually, my personal doctor who does my pap smears is in the hospital.
And are pap smears limited to PP or not? Nope.

Quite obviously any teen with a brain in their head knows that not having sex will guarentee no pregnancy. This knowledge has never prevented teens from having sex and never will. Practicality dictates that teens need to be educated in preventions rather than left in the dark.

But knowledge of the different STD's and other information can be just one thing that can give them motivation to keep abstinent. There have been abstinence programs that have been highly effective in reducing the teen pregnancy rate AND STD's.

Posted by: Bethany at September 20, 2007 12:06 PM
..........................................................

I certainly have no problem with abstinence programs as long as they are teaching STD and pregnancy prevention practices for when the individual decides they are ready for a sexual relationship.
I've never had a doctor without a private office outside of the military of course. My daughter is a student with no health insurance. She has her paps done at PP. She and her husband are planning on starting a family when she is done with her masters and have been taught NFP by planned parenthood as they wouldn't mind an oopsie and she felt it was time to get off the pill.
I had my first pap smear at PP before I got married back in '75. My cancer doc sent me to PP for an abortion back in the late 80s. PP came to our high school back in the 70s. They were quite clear that they weren't suggesting that anyone was sexually active but in case some where, they explained the risks and preventions. They also informed us about the dangers of drug use in pregnancy. (Acid was a big thing back in those days.) Obviuously some didn't listen. At least 2 cheerleaders were pregnant at graduation. But I digress. I have had nothing but top quality information and care from PP.

I didn't say it was sad that a woman didn't want to have babies.

No, I thought it was sad that someone could so definitively say that a child would make them miserable.

I'm not ragging on women who have no children, but rather women who can see nothing good in children at all and so are convinced that there is NO benefit and ONLY misery.

And Hal... I guess we differ in a very, very fundamental way. For me, it is the destination - not the journey.

Heaven - don't miss it for the world!

And, emus are awesome!

And, for the record, I don't use NFP. Never have.

wow, Milehimama, maybe you figured out the fundamental differences that divide us. The journey is what it's all about for me, on a road trip, interludes, or through life.

Sally-

I certainly hope that you realize that virgins can get develop cervical cancer and you go for yearly paps. If you don't have health insurance you can go to PP for your exams.

My likelihood of developing cervical cancer is substantially lower than yours, since I don't let potentially-HPV infected penises of strangers close to my cervix. My NFP only Catholic OBGYN does my paps, though. Thanks for your (fake) concern. Now answer how my having sex would make me better off?

Posted by: Jacqueline at September 20, 2007 1:56 PM
.........................................................................
I read somewhere that nuns have as high an incidence of cervical cancer as prostitutes. And of course if you never ever have sex your whole entire life, you are unlikely to come in contact with HPV.
Of course HPV was an unknown entity back when I dealt with cervical cancer. I was first tested for it last year. Negative. Since HPV causes no symptoms for men, I may have contacted HPV through my second husband or never at all. It's all conjecture at this point.
Now, whats with the snotty question? I could care less if you ever have sex. It's none of my business. But I might suggest an alternative stress releaver. You are mighty defensive.

nevermind, I found it.

Main Entry: therapeutic abortion
Function: noun
: abortion induced when pregnancy constitutes a threat to the physical or mental health of the mother

That's as opposed to an Elective Abortion which is what most women have. You know, like I want to dance in a play, or I want to finish school, or I want to go to prom...all those earth shattering reasons.

Of course mental health and physical health are misleading under the title therapeutic, because a hangnail can be given as a physical reason...

Oh those dang definitions...

Hal,

I like to swim in the ocean, but there is a small risk of bad things happening. (sharks, drowning, big waves, broken bones, ugly eels, stepping on sharp things, etc) I wouldn't stop swimming in the ocean because of the risks, although I'd try to be careful. I enjoy sex much more than swimming in the ocean.

What if you heard that in our country 45 million people had been bitten by sharks in the last 30 years? Think if I opted not to swim, I'd be risk aversive? Or just prudent?

Laura,

Yeah, because we all know that no married person ever had an unplanned crisis pregnancy, HPV, loss of self-respect, the clap, abandonment, HIV or herpes, and marriage is always "bliss."

If I marry someone with my same sexual morality, then, yeah, none of those things we befall me. If he didn't sleep around prior to marrying me and remains faithful, there will be no diseases, every pregnancy is a celebration, not a crisis, it's harder to abandon someone you're legally connected to, and my self-respect as a woman very particular about who gets to sleep with remains unchanged. Marriage is a divine, covenental sacrament- not a peace of paper. It's more powerful than magic or voodoo.

Face it, Laura. My choices set the tone for a better life. Choosing to have sex without commitment or fidelty sets the tone for nothing but unnecessary problems.

Posted by: Jacqueline at September 20, 2007 3:23 PM
..............................................................

You are very naive Jacqueline. My mother, the daughter of a minister married the son of a minister. She had known him from childhood. Didn't stop him from knocking up a 16 year old while mom was pregnant with my oldest sister. That was 1945 when those things just didn't happen. @@
Nevertheless, if you find sex to be an unecessary problem, you are quite right not to engage in such relations. Abstinence isn't something that I suggest to my children. It's just a part of life and not something one should obsess about in either direction IMO. I find the obsession over virginity to be the flip side of nymphomania. Sort of what anorexia is in contrast to gluttony.

Jacqueline,
Perhaps you are/are not aware, but Hal and his wife terminated pregnancy #1 and pregnancy #4. They have 2 surviving children.

Just mentioning that since it might have a bearing on your replies.

It takes a village to raise a child.

http://www.stayalive.org/stayalive/

Awww, Hal. Shallow, Shallow Hal.

Sally's point was that even I can get cervical cancer. My point was that I might still get cervical cancer, but I'm less likely to- and less likely to get a host of diseases she chooses to swim in by being promiscuous.
.......................................
You made quite a little leap there little girl. Being PC I must have multiple sex partners every day of the week? And just one to you is all icky poo poo. I don't see a brilliant future in your studies when you believe that you already know it all. But hey! The RCC declared the earth round in the 80s and your educational basis might catch up to the 17th century any time now.

Here's what gets me -

Smoking cigarettes causes cancer among other diseases - many places (including much of California) have banned smoking because of the health risk.

Unhealthy fats and greasy foods cause obesity which leads to many different health problems - there is a new trend of fast food places to stop using certain fats in their menu while some organizations are trying to force them to alter their menu for the health of the people.

It is unhealthy for children to stay inside and play computer games/watch TV etc. - this causes obesity among other problems - many hollywoodits and politicians are setting up programs so kids will get out and exercise.

Not eating enough fruits and vegetables is bad for you so now most public schools offer a variety of foods, and with the pressure of politics and such many have removed their Coke/Pepsi machines because that is bad for them.

My point? If anything causes bad health, or will cause bad health in the futrue, the answer is to eliminate that cause.

Promiscuous sex can cause:

Gonorrhea
Chlamydia
Syphilis
Genital Herpes
HPV
Genital Warts
Chancroid
Ectoparasitic Infections
AIDS/HIV
Hepatitis B
Hepatitis C
LGV

I'm sure I missed some.

Why is it that a thin layer of plastic is what is recommended?

Condoms to prevent STD/STI's have been taught for decades. I remember being taught that in my abstinence only Catholic sex education class in 1987.

From the CDC:

1 out of every 5 people of reproductive age have an incurable STD/STI

19 million new sexually transmitted infections occur every year.

of the 19 million - 9.1 million are from people aged 15 - 24

For latex condoms the typical failure rate is 12%

For latex condoms when used perfectly the failure rate is 2% - 3%

I just don't get it. Shouldn't society be encouraging abstinence? Instead of saying "well, teens are going to do it anyway so lets give them condoms" - (teens have the worst failure rate of condoms even when correctly taught) we should be encouraging them to do what is right for their health. Not what is believed to be their right of an orgasm.

Dang,

Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water...well, Hal, there goes your theory on risk aversion...

Valerie, you should be pleased with PP, which teaches abstinance PLUS.

Abstinance for the abstinant; condoms for the sexually active. The best of both worlds.

Regarding the quality of PP's condoms: There just isn't that much difference between expensive condoms and cheap ones. And PP is a minimun-cost outfit--that's part of their mission, to provide reproductive care and contraceptives AT MINIMUM COST TO THE CLIENTS.

Someone a while back said PP is the Walmart of reproductive care. I think that's a good characterization.

"wise up, Laura." My, that's a bit condensceding isn't it? I know, killing babies bad.

Posted by: Hal at September 20, 2007 6:26 PM

Hal, you seem very blase about the killing of babies. But now after seeing the post by "carder" maybe you?re just trying to ease your conscience....

SOMG:

"Regarding the quality of PP's condoms: There just isn't that much difference between expensive condoms and cheap ones. "

*sigh*

From Rick Sowadsky, MSPH
Nevada State health devision AIDS program

Failure rates can actually vary from one brand of condom to another. Consumer Reports magazine did a brand-by-brand comparison of condoms in their May 1995 issue, with an update in the January 1996 issue. This is perhaps the best review I've seen of failure rates for condoms. Because Consumer Reports does not accept any advertising, they were able to be totally objective at rating one brand of condom versus another

http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/SafeSex/Archive/PreventionSexual/Q8978.html

Kristen,
"Hal, you seem very blase about the killing of babies. But now after seeing the post by "carder" maybe you?re just trying to ease your conscience...."

No, Kristen, regrettably, he has absolutely no regrets regarding first-conceived and last-conceived. He made that crystal clear some time ago. Which is why I'm still baffled by him...polite, generous to charity, but HOW could he and wifey do it? Not once, but twice!

This kind of wraps into Jacqueline's steam blower on the Terri Schiavo thread a few days ago, when she correctly wondered how she could even reason with their (PC) warped consciences (something to that effect).

So I mentioned that tidbit because as you have pointed out, it throws another perspective to his *valuation*. Blog buzzword.

And I shouldn't come across too harsh on Hal. It was a mutual decision, I'm assuming, but his wife doesn't post so we're going on just his testimony.

Kristen, of course he is. Hal, have you ever seen an abortion? Go and watch The Choice Blues video. You will see small hands and feet being torn out of the woman. Her cervix looks like it's being mutilated. Esh, I just can't believe that you and your wife support one another in this. You both supported the death of 2 of your children.

Do you disagree? Then resolve to fight fair in the arenas of politics, law and public opinion. Until then, stop crying foul.

The last line was interesting to me.

There was no way to fight fair because Planned Parenthood was deceptive. Had Planned Parenthood issued the appropriate notices, held public meetings, or whatever was required, it could have been discussed, would have been discussed, and odds are very good that they would have been rejected out of hand, because for many reasons (some of which is the embarrassing conscience pricking that peacefully praying people cause) people don't want a planned parenthood clinic in their neighborhood.

Imagine that I requested a building permit for a new bookstore in the center of town. I filled out all the paperwork, the area was zoned for business, and as soon as it was built, I opened up "Joe's Adult Bookstore".

Oh, by the way, I left out that little detail, and since porn is legal (protected by the First Amendment), I'm using this parcel of land for its intended purpose.

Imagine the outcry.

Sally,

You made quite a little leap there little girl.

If you call me "little girl", can I call you "old woman"?

Hal,

Here's another line that shows a misunderstanding of what sex is about."

I think you have a misunderstanding of what sex is about, which is why you take such drastic steps to change it (contraceptives, abortion, etc). Sex is not scratching some carnal itch, it's not just a hobby: There are physical and emotional ramifications. Look up "Oxytocin." It's a chemical women produce during sex and during childbirth that helps emotionally bond human beings. Maybe this is why women are hurt by interludes that go nowhere- or maybe it's because we're not intended to brainlessly bang people like housecats when the result could be a son or daughter.

To you, sex is cheap and recreational. It's like any other biological function, only you want to take what you want from it and leave what you don't. Sex is intended to bond couples emotionally, produce children as a fruit of that bond. Besides your connection to your mother prior to birth, sex is the way two people that love eachother can be the closest possible. It's something intensely private that is shared between two people. Simply because you reduce it to mutual masterbation and kill the fruits of it, and likewise society has cheapened it doesn't change it's power or intent. Sex is more than just for fun, and sex is probably much more fun when you're not trying to sabotage nature at every turn.

(not to mention a real misunderstanding about me--"Guys like you" indeed! ;) )

Guys like you, indeed! 2 of your children were killed so you could have the pleasures of sex without the natural consequences.

I do think you're underestimating the benefits and overestimating the negatives

No, I'm holding out for a time when sex has no negatives. Sex doesn't have to have any negatives, unless you pervert it out of it's intent and context. Premarital sex takes gratutious risks with people's lives (children, mine, my partners) and delivers nothing substantial in return. Marital sex offers countless, immeasurable benefits for those that wait for it. I could have sex now and risk my body, my heart and my children- or have it later and risk nothing. Which is smarter? People that defer gratification are more successful than people that do not for this very reason.

Jacque, I agree! Hal, you and your wife love each other, right? Part of that love should include loving your offspring. You took the cowardly way out....sorry.

Heather, We love our offspring. Both of them.

Jacqueline. I perhaps was wrong. You don't seem to underestimate the benefits of sex, you seem to elevate to a such holy level that you are probably going to far in the other direction. Sex is sex. Sex with someone you love is better (usually) than sex with someone you like. Sex can be recreational, I've got no problem with that. That doesn't prevent it from being wonderful and deep in a marital relationship.
It's been interesting debating you on this issue because we differ so much in our outlook. (contraception is "drastic?") However, I should stop and repeat what I said yesterday. What works for you is fine with me. I'm happy with my outlook, you're happy with your outlook. All is well.

hal, I'm not saying that you don't love your children, but how do you guys maintain a good relationship with each other knowing that you rid yourselves of 2 of your children? Hal, you call the doctor who performed your wife's abortions "A great doctor." Hal, he's a murderer.

"Hal, you call the doctor who performed your wife's abortions "A great doctor." Hal, he's a murderer."

He delivered our two wonderful girls, including the first one which had some difficulty during birth. He's smart, compassionate, and skilled. He's no murderer. He's a very fine man.

Milehi...

If this isn't too intrusive...you said you've never used NFP. Does that mean you've never used any type of family planning method or that you use another form of contraception? For some reason I had this idea that you were a proponent of NFP. Sorry if this is personal, feel free to disregard my question if you feel it is inappropriate.

"Heather, We love our offspring. Both of them."

Hal, you don't have two offspring, you have four...

Oh, wow. This thread is delicious.

Jacqueline, you seem so very defensive of your choices. One would think that you envy those who've made different choices so much that you have to wish death and blisters on them.

Given all your whining about how hormonal birth control is "poison", I suppose you've never met someone with the sort of hormone imbalance that drives them into an implacable rage once every month if they're not on them. But living without the implacable rage would be unnatural, wouldn't it?

I suppose that Jacqueline will, once she gets that man who will provide her with those all-important children, begin pumping them out at eighteen-month intervals until she keels over, right? Because anything else would be unnatural, and I doubt that the future Mr. Jacqueline will be interested in hearing about how maybe they should abstain for a little while after her sixth pregnancy.

Also, she'll never marry again if her husband leaves her or gets hit by a bus. Better hope you make the right call on that one.

This, however, takes the cake:

No, I'm holding out for a time when sex has no negatives.

Because getting pregnant and legally bound to someone and finding out he's an abusive asshole isn't a negative. Because the various potentially fatal complications of pregnancy aren't a negative. Because getting pregnant six times in a row isn't a negative because you have that much love for potential children of yours. Because after building up sex in your mind to this mystical brain-bursting explosion of holy joy, finding out that while it can be pretty great, (a) it's honestly not the greatest thing in the whole world, and (b) people tend to be pretty awful at it when they haven't done it before... isn't a negative.

Hal, you don't have two offspring, you have four...

Kristen, if an offspring is christened at conception, given the average failure rate of implantation (that is, spontaneous miscarriages that go unnoticed), does that mean that everyone has some statistically-determined number of invisible offspring?

Oh, and fun question: fraternal twins form. You, at this point, have two offspring, yes? However, they fuse in utero, creating a rare condition called tetragametic chimerism. One child is born, and without genetic testing, it appears exactly as though you have one offspring. What happened to the other one?

Jaqueline: Look up "Oxytocin." It's a chemical women produce during sex and during childbirth that helps emotionally bond human beings. Maybe this is why women are hurt by interludes that go nowhere- or maybe it's because we're not intended to brainlessly bang people like housecats when the result could be a son or daughter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh my,
Jaqueline actually BOUGHT the "Mega Quack Keroack" mythology on oxytocin.
It's pretty hilarious. (Note: Keroack has been canned from HHS):

Column: Ideology trumps all in Bush's treatment of reproductive health
Published: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 - 3:31pm

The recent appointment of a staunch abstinence-only proponent to head the federal family planning program is just the latest sign that the Bush administration is hazardous to our health, Jessica Stark says

JESSICA STARK
Gargoyle assistant editor
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006

JUST WHEN WE all thought President Bush couldn't possibly get more conservative, he spectacularly proves us wrong. But this time, it's not just politics — Bush's conservative ideals are beginning to permeate public health care.

On Nov. 16, our president appointed Dr. Eric Keroack as head of the family planning program at the Department of Health and Human Services — the only federally funded program solely concerned with reproductive health and family planning services. More precisely, he appointed Keroack to head HHS's Office of Population Affairs. His official title is deputy assistant secretary for population affairs.

In his new job, which he began last week (confirmation hearings weren't required), Keroack oversees OPA's Title X family planning program, which had a $288 million budget in 2005. According to The Washington Post, the program supports a network of 4,600 clinics that provide information and counseling to 5 million people each year. He also oversees a $30 million program that encourages abstinence among teens.

Keroack, an obstetrician-gynecologist, is not only staunchly anti-abortion but also unwaveringly against the use of contraceptives. He is known nationwide for his crazy and unsupported medical theories concerning reproductive health.

Keroack's disturbingly abysmal credentials include being the medical director of A Woman's Concern, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts that runs six pregnancy health service centers. The organization perpetuates the falsehood that having an abortion increases a woman's risk for breast cancer. The group also steadfastly opposes distributing contraceptives, even to married couples, claiming that the distribution and use of contraceptives is demeaning to women and human sexuality and can negatively affect a person's physical and mental health.

Keroack now conveniently declares that he disagrees with these claims; indeed, an HHS spokesperson says Keroack prescribed birth control to patients while in private practice. But it is clear his obvious pro-life stance and opposition to the use of contraceptives made him especially appealing to the conservative Bush administration.

Keroack's conservative, if unsupported, medical theories probably also won him support from our president. At abstinence conferences throughout the country, Keroack has presented his novel theory concerning brain chemistry.

This theory specifically concerns the chemical oxytocin, which is found in the human brain and is released during activities that result in positive social interaction, such as sexual intercourse, and is thought to promote bonding in social settings, such as sexual relationships.

Keroack claims that by having too many sexual partners, a person can exhaust his or her supply of oxytocin and will thus lose the capacity for having healthy, fulfilling relationships.

Interestingly, Dr. Rebecca Turner, one of the scientists upon whose research Keroack's theory is based, has publicly announced that this claim is completely unsupported by her studies. Apparently, our government likes to reward those who fudge the scientific aspect of their medical theories by putting them in charge of health care services for the entire country.

If truth be told, this all sounds like a bad joke. Since when are contraceptives demoralizing to women? Granted, using contraceptives in order to have promiscuous sex with multiple partners can have adverse effects on one's mental health and increase one's risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), but using contraceptives in general can elicit very positive results.

In fact, it could even be argued that, rather than being demoralizing to women, they are empowering by providing women with the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies and protect themselves against STDs.

Furthermore, how can one use up a chemical in one's body? Most chemicals found in the human body are produced by the body itself and thus can continue to be produced as they are consumed. I'm no doctor, but almost anyone who has had any kind of sex ed course would agree that Keroack's oxytocin theory sounds completely ludicrous.

While it is definitely worrisome that the person in charge of federal funding for public reproductive health care is so ideologically extreme, Keroack's appointment will not drastically alter the country's family planning and reproductive health services. After all, there is only one federal program concerned with these issues, and the funding it provides cannot possibly be enough to control all of the abortion clinics, contraceptive manufacturing centers, or pharmacies that sell birth control pills across the country.

There are still organizations out there, such as Planned Parenthood, that will continue to provide couples with adequate and accurate reproductive health care and information even without government funding.

More important than Keroack, however, is the coming 2008 election. Hopefully the voters in this country will take Bush's performance into account and vote in such a way that will get this country out of the mess it's in. Once Bush is out of office, it's only a matter of time until Keroack and the many other incompetent conservative ideologues Bush has put into power are replaced with people much more competent and knowledgeable about their positions.

"Keroack claims that by having too many sexual partners, a person can exhaust his or her supply of oxytocin and will thus lose the capacity for having healthy, fulfilling relationships." That's a riot.

lmfao, since when can the body not restore its stock of a chemical released at certain times (provided you eat and all that). A limited store, thats a funny one.

Laura, as for the incompetence of Bush and incompetent conservatives, this article should give you a laugh, by a VERY liberal columnist who loves to incorporate things that will tick conservative readers off.

Disclaimer: There is certainly a degree of name calling, outright dislike, and multiple references to sex, etc. You have been warned.

here

RE: "therapeutic abortion": This is an oxymoron which infers that killing an unborn child is somehow "good", "necessary" and therapeutic.

The usual "indication" for this quack "therapy" is alleged danger to the mother's life; however, this is unfounded in that induced abortion always has a significant negative impact on a woman's body. Even Alan Guttmacher, past president of Planned Parenthood, admitted in 1987, “TODAY IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ALMOST ANY PATIENT TO BE BROUGHT THROUGH PREGNANCY ALIVE, UNLESS SHE SUFFERS FROM. A FATAL DISEASE SUCH AS CANCER OR LEUKEMIA, AND IF SO, ABORTION WOULD BE UNLIKELY TO PROLONG, MUCH LESS SAVE, THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER.”

Planned Parenthood also stated, in a 1962 pamphlet on birth control, “AN ABORTION KILLS THE LIFE OF A BABY AFTER IT HAS BEGUN. IT IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR LIFE AND HEALTH. IT MAY. .MAKE YOU STERILE, SO THAT WHEN YOU WANT A CHILD YOU CANNOT HAVE IT…” (Like a broken clock, PP gets it right about twice a day in spite of itself). Nothing has changed about the nature of induced abortion since either of these statements were made; however, you won't hear the last one, especially, from them since Roe v. Wade has made it so legal and lucrative for PP.

These facts, taken together with the fact that PP itself is another branch of the eugenics movement behind the Third Reich,(see eugenics-watch.com) the term "therapeutic abortion" is an indication that the campaign to legalize child-killing was never about a "woman's right to choose"; that was just a catchy phrase used to cover with a mask of respectability a doctor's right to kill instead of heal.

A precursor to any genocidal campaign is a propaganda campaign which not only dehumanizes the targeted victim class, but portrays them as "a disease" that the rest of society needs to get rid of in order to thrive. I have heard the unborn referenced as "parasitic growths", pregnancy referenced as a "sexually-transmitted disease"; this language is identical to the metaphor used against Jews prior to(and, of course, during) the Third Reich. They were referenced as cancerous tumors on the (supposedly) otherwise healthy body of German society, in order to legitimize the many atrocities inflicted on them as eugenic ideology was imposed on them in the Nazi concentration/death camps. Similar dehumanizing, pathologizing language (can anyone say "hate speech"?)has been used against blacks, women, and others by those who wanted to justify their abuses of them.

Arx Axiom:
WE LOSE OUR BEARINGS ENTIRELY BY SPEAKING OF "THE LOWER CLASSES" WHEN WE MEAN HUMANITY MINUS OURSELVES.

ABORTION DOES NOT CURE OR TREAT ANY REAL KNOWN DISEASE OR INJURY; THEREFORE, WHETHER YOU CALL IT "CHOICE", OR CALL IT MURDER, THE ONE THING YOU CAN'T CALL IT IS HEALTHCARE.

and last, but not least,

THE COST TO SOCIETY TO CARE FOR ALL THE PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY HANDICAPPED AMONG US IS BUT A TINY FRACTION OF THE COST TO SOCIETY FOR THE MORALLY DEFORMED AMONG US...as any Auschwitz survivor will attest.

gaelyn, for it to be considered a genocide, PP would want to terminate ALL pregnancies, would not offer other services to pregnant women, and essentially would want to bring the human race to extinction.

Somehow, Im not buying it.

as for the last bit,

did you know, that in one state (I think it is Oregon) if you are terminally ill you can bring your case to a boar