(Prolifer)ations 8-26-11
by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli
We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.
- At Live Action, Jennie Stone relays her experience during a sidewalk counseling session and prayer vigil in Madrid, where at least one baby’s life was saved because of the presence of the peaceful protesters.
- Abolitionist Society discusses the need for “restoring honor and life to rape conceived women and their children. Women and children of rape should not carry shame that belongs to the rapists.”
- Abstinence Clearinghouse has a “you can’t make this stuff up” post about a $75k Health and Human Services grant for “Community-Centered Healthy Marriage and Relationships” which specifically excludes proponents of abstinence education from applying, despite several studies showing the damaging social and sexual effects of multiple partners prior to marriage. AC muses:Would the Obama administration actually ban sexual abstinence programs while promoting healthy relationships? Sounds kind of like banning seatbelts while promoting car safety….
What powerful group or groups benefit both politically and financially from teen pregnancy and how would those groups influence public policy?
- Americans United for Life shares information on their 2011-12 Law Student Externship Program opportunity.
- Fletcher Armstrong spots the contradiction: The University of Maryland Baltimore County endorsed showing graphic images of the civil rights movement in a recent event on their campus, but pro-life students had to sue the university to display pictures of abortion.
- The Culture Vulture is unsurprised by new UK poll results showing young Christians (age 18-34) are more concerned about abortion and euthanasia than are older Christians (65 years+).
- Generations for Life promotes National Pro-Life Chalk Day, to be held on September 8. This is a great, low cost way to use your own social media to educate and start conversations on abortion.
- The Lost Generation references a report that provides expert scientific evidence for the humanity of the preborn from fertilization:In 71 pages, this report extensively details the modern scientific proof of the humanity and separate, unique life of the unborn child. No one who claims to truly believe in choice should turn away from at least reading the current evidence for human life in the womb….
Based on testimony from expert geneticists and embryologists, the Task Force agreed, “There can no longer be any doubt that each human being is totally unique from the very beginning of his or her life at fertilization.”
- Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life highlights O. Carter Snead’s new Public Discourse essay in which he disagrees with the old Clinton election slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Snead points out that the life issue should be emphasized because pro-life issues “are intrinsically of greater moral significance than the other political issues of our day,” noting the “power of the presidency to affect these issues.”
Aug.26, 2011 3:41 pm |
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Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
To those in the path of Irene I am praying for you!!
I hope you have everything you need!!
Hi there!
You all need to go check out choices4life.org! That is the organization that is putting on the gala in november to restore honor to rape victims that conceived and kept their children. Juda Myers is the woman in charge of this ministry. Look her up on facebook and find her website she needs all the support she can get. This is something every prolife organization should get excited about and promote.
Thanks
Grant
Thanks, Grant!
Everyone, you can find a link to the Choices4Life website in our sidebar under Top Sites as well.
I read somewhere the other day – and no, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the numbers, apparently Guttmacher has some data – that 94% of sex-ed textbooks used in schools in Texas teach only abstinence with nary a mention of contraception; yet Texas is one of only five states with a teen pregnancy rate above 10%.
“…ban sexual abstinence programs while promoting healthy relationships? Sounds kind of like banning seatbelts while promoting car safety….” – no, that’d be like banning contraceptives while promoting safe sex. Abstinence would be taking away the car.
Yes Reality, abstinence is banning driving a car for those who don’t have licenses. Makes sense to me.
And how do you judge who does or doesn’t have a licence to have sex? Is there a definitive test? Who ordains that a licence is required anyway?
I really want to know how abstinence programs are supposed to stop teens from having sex, honestly. I was told to be abstinent as a teen, and I laughed it off. How are these programs supposed to work?
Such programs depend on a culture that takes abstinence seriously.
The fact that abstinence programs are not taken seriously is a sign that the culture is on the wrong side of wisdom with respect to abstinence itself. We accept that teenagers are rutting sluts. “What can we do?” is our effete posture. Let’s wring our hands some more! And throw condoms from parade floats!
When you begin a marathon, your doubting friends may laugh at your first step, and your second step, and your third. And if you begin doubting yourself, the goal will be impossible.
So screw the doubting friends who accept that your and their children are rutting sluts. Don’t ask how programs blah blah yada yada. They’re the commonsense thing. Ask, rather, why a culture that deems it normal for teens to be rutting sluts is getting in the way of progress toward a genuinely human — rather than merely animal — sexuality.
Anyone who doesn’t want to do something “laughs off” being told to do it. Think of how many areas in life that’s true. Now imagine what it would be like in those areas if we thought “it’s useless. why try?” And yet we treat sex differently? Why?
Hear! Hear! Rasqual.
Because many actually have a very low opinion of sex. They see it merely as first on the list of their favorite activities, Well above racketball and hiking, to be sure.
In the animal kingdom, it is a brief binding force for the purpose of reproduction.
In the human kingdom, hopefully, it is the binding force in the nucleus of a family.
Sounds like fission versus fusion. In some ways, perhaps so.
JackBorsch says:
August 26, 2011 at 10:49 pm
I really want to know how abstinence programs are supposed to stop teens from having sex, honestly. I was told to be abstinent as a teen, and I laughed it off. How are these programs supposed to work?
(Denise) I was also told to be abstinent as a teen — and I was. Most of my free time was spent in my room. My parents couldn’t punish me by “grounding” me because my room was the place I wanted to be. I turned “sweet 16 and never been kissed.” I got a boyfriend when I was 18 and in college but we did not have the sort of sexual relationship that has the possibility of leading to pregnancy. If I could do this, why can’t others?
Any sex-ed program is probably one of the least influential things when it comes to teens deciding to have sex. Studies show that parents are the #1 influence. I can’t tell you how many of my friends think it is inevitable that their teens will have sex. Inevitable. And that’s pure crap. If you don’t support your teen in choosing abstinence, the sex-ed program they experience for a couple of weeks in 5th, 8th, and 10th grades isn’t going to matter one bit. When parents and peers are such overwhelming factors in influencing teens, how can the success of a sex-ed program be measured? It can’t.
Any honest, factual sex-ed program has to teach that abstinence is absolutely the best way for teens to stay healthy.
Denise Noe,
Abstinence is harder for some people than others. It does not make it less important, but maybe you could try to respect the fact that everyone has different challenges in life? Not everyone enjoys being cloistered…
Parents are the best influence. And abstinence is not about just say no – it’s about self-mastery and confidence. When dads have good relationships with their daughters and show respect and good behavior toward their wives, that sets up a great dynamic for their children to emulate.
My children – both girls are abstinent. One is getting married next spring. She has been dating her fiance for 7 years. They have done a great job. And he is telling his brothers to wait until marriage for sexual intimacy. They have plenty of things to do to enjoy themselves and keep their relationship close and fun. My future son-in-law ia a shining example of how to treat a woman – with respect, courtesy and love – and is not afraid to wait until the right time for marital intimacy. I admire them both.
My youngest is focused on her future career – music – and knows that early intimacy can derail the loftiest of goals. Both young women are doing a beautiful job!
Love the kids. Aim them high. Give them tools and strategies to succeed. They can do it. And if they fall from their goals – anyone can get up and try again.
I always tell people that you never see people making love in the middle of a basketball game in center court. Why not if people are animals? If kids can control themselves in front of people – then they can control themselves.
The trick is to be with others most of the time (not by yourselves in a car/ behind school, in an empty house etc.), and have a plan and a goal and strategies. it works.
Self-mastery / self-respect / loving your family and wanting the very best for them. It can be done.
I just want to throw this out there. I think I have discussed it.
There is a link between teenage drinking, promiscuity and unplanned pregnancies.
Carla says:
August 27, 2011 at 12:50 pm
I just want to throw this out there. I think I have discussed it.
There is a link between teenage drinking, promiscuity and unplanned pregnancies.
(Denise) Very true. I think this holds true if you include adults as well. Why was it that the first-wave feminists or suffragettes were also part of the temperance movement? It was in large part because drinking was a major factor in the irresponsible sexual conduct that led to the abortions that the suffragettes abhorred and babies that would not be well cared for.
Denise says:
“I was also told to be abstinent as a teen — and I was. Most of my free time was spent in my room. My parents couldn’t punish me by “grounding” me because my room was the place I wanted to be. I turned “sweet 16 and never been kissed.” I got a boyfriend when I was 18 and in college but we did not have the sort of sexual relationship that has the possibility of leading to pregnancy. If I could do this, why can’t others?”
(Jack) Yeah…. A lot of kids are not willing to chill in their rooms all the time. I would have gone insane. I was simply wondering how these programs worked. I was especially wondering how they were supposed to work for those of us who were naturally reckless and didn’t have parents who taught us about self-respect.
Thanks Carla! I made an oil lamp and got the candles out, filled the tub with water, and stocked up at the library – I should be set. ;) I am right between B and C evacuation zones – not really worried about anything, but I did take the AC units out, both for the safety of people below and for waterproofing.
As for abstinence education – I wasn’t told to be abstinent but I didn’t have sex until an age after lots of people are married. I was taught to have sex when I was ready, and to never ever let anyone or anything coerce that decision. I recognize that it’s “wrong” for some belief systems but I have never regretted or felt bad about any of my decisions.
I was especially wondering how they were supposed to work for those of us who were naturally reckless and didn’t have parents who taught us about self-respect.
They are supposed to work by exposing you to a different mindset than you might be exposed to by family, peers and the rest of the world. Abstinence programs give you the exposure — what you choose to do with that exposure is you using your free will.
I was exposed to teachings of abstinence. I was taught how to avoid sin, etc. etc. Because I thought I knew better was no fault of the teachers or the program. The teachers didn’t suffer the consequences of my poor choices — I did.
What is that saying about a leading a horse and water?
JackBorsch, sex-ed is treated pretty much like any other academic subject in school. The teachers share facts/information with the students. The students are tested on their knowledge of those facts. What they choose to do with that information once class ends is up to them.
For my children, 5th grade it’s primarily focused on the changes of puberty and the human reproductive system at a high level.
8th grade is about healthy choices, includes detailed info about risky behavior including pregnancy, STD’s etc and presents the healthiest choice as abstinence. It reviews the human reproductive system again.
10th grade is a more intense program with many factors influencing overall health, not just sexual health. The program includes information about both physical and emotional health. It goes into great detail about how many choices influence health including exercise, nutrition, relationships, sexuality, etc. They cover methods of contraception on a high level and do share that abstinence is the healthiest choice.
Thank you. I was just wondering what and how they taught sex ed. I never went to public school so I have no idea.
The item from the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life highlighted the importance of staying with the social issues in the 2012 campaign. This is an important consideration that the country club establishment Republicans will want to jettison in favor of a 100% focus on jobs and the economy. The author of the article is a professor at Notre Dame who argues persuasively that social issues are a key component of the upcoming campaign because of their moral implications. Who says we cannot talk about both the economy AND the right to life?
Jack, their are abstinence programs that are secular and some are faith-based. At this time from what I’ve heard Obama and his HHS secretary have dismantled all funding for true abstinence education and will only fund programs that focus on teaching condom-skills and contraception about 90% of the time, they call this Abstinence Plus. Talk about an oxymoron.
Some of the good secular programs I’ve seen focus first on promoting goal-setting (students set educational, vocational and family goals), defining healthy relationships (not just dating but their friends also), why abstinence is the safest, healthiest and the only 100% protection for the physical, emotional and social consequences of premarital sex activity (not just intercourse), the importance of avoiding all risky behaviors (alcohol, drugs and sex because these behaviors are usually connected), the consequences, symptoms and statistics of STDs, the consequences of premarital pregnancy not just physical but emotional risks as well, behavioral strategies for avoiding sexual involvement, refusal skills and how to start over by practicing secondary virginity for those already sexually active. Hopefully this is helpful, Jack. I would look over any sex ed curriculum before allowing my children to be taught it (when my children were teens I looked over the curriculum with the health teacher beforehand). Having a good hands-on parental relationship with their teens is the first line of prevention for helping teens avoid risky behaviors including engaging in sexual activity.
JackBorsch says:
August 27, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Denise says:
“I was also told to be abstinent as a teen — and I was. Most of my free time was spent in my room. My parents couldn’t punish me by “grounding” me because my room was the place I wanted to be. I turned “sweet 16 and never been kissed.” I got a boyfriend when I was 18 and in college but we did not have the sort of sexual relationship that has the possibility of leading to pregnancy. If I could do this, why can’t others?”
(Jack) Yeah…. A lot of kids are not willing to chill in their rooms all the time.
(Denise) I had a radio and a TV. I also had books, newspapers, and magazines.
Using “abstinence education” to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the transmission of sexual diseases is like telling people not to drive in order to lower the frequency of traffic fatalities, or not to eat in order to avoid excessive weight gain. It’s a flawed equation that treats something as a constant when it should instead be a variable: rather than take into consideration the fact that some or most students are going to have sex in spite of all the “abstinence education” they’ve received, and accommodate that fact by instructing them in ways to do so safely, it begins and ends with the assumption that they’re simply not going to have sex, and therefore further instruction in methods of safe sex would be redundant or even counter-productive to the final goal of preventing sex entirely.
“I was taught to have sex when I was ready, and to never ever let anyone or anything coerce that decision.”
I like this approach, Alexandra :)
I live in a part of the country where “conservative” boys and girls get married young so they can have “legitimate” sex. Talk about cheapening the whole marriage thing.
Megan says:
August 28, 2011 at 2:23 pm
“I was taught to have sex when I was ready, and to never ever let anyone or anything coerce that decision.”I like this approach, Alexandra I live in a part of the country where “conservative” boys and girls get married young so they can have “legitimate” sex. Talk about cheapening the whole marriage thing.
(Denise) Actually, one of the primary contributors to many problems associated with irresponsible sexual expression and problem pregnancies is that the age at which it is feasible for people to marry keeps getting older. This is happening at the same time that the age when people go through puberty is getting younger.
I know many consider me an off-the-wall radical. However, it is a simple truth that pregnancies occurring within stable marriages are much more likely to be accepted — whether planned or not — than those that happen to single females. Therefore, encouraging marriage is important. Delaying the age of marriage makes it difficult to delay procreative sex until marriage.
If we want to decrease the horror of abortion, if we want babies born into situations in which they are likely to be adequately nurtured, we have to make it feasible for people to marry and start families in their late teens or early 20s. This is not radicalism or off-the-wall thinking. It is simple sense.
Except for the fact that:
married people abort too.
just because your married doesn’t mean you’ll instantly have all the resources required to care for an ensuing family.
I think we should bring back apprenticeship programs for individuals unable/uninterested college-wise. Give people more useful skills on the job sooner in their lives.
joan,
Abstinence education begins with the premise that risk prevention is superior to risk reduction.
Instructing teens that abstinence until marriage is healthiest, to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the transmission of sexual diseases, is like telling people not to drive until they are 15 and have completed a drivers education course in order to lower the frequency of traffic fatalities.
“accommodate that fact by instructing them in ways to do so safely”
There is no such thing as safe sex. Only safer sex. And there is no protection for what happens in the brain during sex. You can read the details about that in this excellent book:
http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Science-Casual-Affecting-Children/dp/0802450601
Xalisae,
I agree 100% with you. I think college serves only a small percentage of learning types, and consequently many people underutilize their skills in other equally important arenas. My father is entirely self-taught and did just fine for himself, but he started his career (an apprenticeship, basically) in a very different economic climate. I don’t think he would have been able to pull it off today.
Denise,
I didn’t mean to say that we, as a society, shouldn’t encourage stable, long-term unions as the best place for raising kids. I was pointing out that a culture obsessed with virginity and abstinence can have some warped outcomes, namely that young kids marry for the sake of having sex (and subsequently have terrible marriages because they’re far too immature).
Interesting. I also saw an article the other day which showed that ‘bible belt’ states have higher divorce rates than others. One theory was that people in bible belts married younger so they could have sex and that their lack of life experience and achievement contributed to the level of marital breakdown.
“Abstinence education begins with the premise that risk prevention is superior to risk reduction.”
A premise that could be used to justify spending your life hiding in a sterilized room in complete isolation in order to avoid germs and whatever other dangers exist “out there”. Some things, or even many things, are worth the risks they imply for the people who do them. Every time you drive your car, you risk an accident. In order to avoid this, you don’t simply refuse to drive or go anywhere near other people who do, you wear a seatbelt, observe the rules of the road, and pay careful attention. Of course, even taking these precautions, you could still be seriously harmed or killed while driving, but the precautions are intended to drastically reduce that possibility, not eliminate it.
“Instructing teens that abstinence until marriage is healthiest, to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the transmission of sexual diseases, is like telling people not to drive until they are 15 and have completed a drivers education course in order to lower the frequency of traffic fatalities.”
Except it isn’t “healthiest”. Unwanted pregnancies can and do happen within marriage. Sexual diseases can be transmitted between married partners. Abstinence until marriage defers the risks of sex, it doesn’t prevent them. Meanwhile, whatever physiological or mental benefits sex provides are also deferred. Abstinence education doesn’t teach that either.
“Abstinence until marriage defers the risks of sex, it doesn’t prevent them.”
^Bingo.
Fine, fine. Let’s hand out hip flasks so kids have somewhere to store their booze. Don’t want to stay in some locked room about that issue, either.
Taxpayer-funded, of course.
It’s common, legal, and socially accepted in many European countries for children to consume alcohol. As a result, they learn to respect its potency and use it with moderation. I guess that’s much worse than kids in America getting to college and binge-drinking non-stop for the next 4 years.
sexual teaching is the only one that says : people are totally unable to control them selves – so let’s assume they will, not expect much, and deal with (or profit from) the consequences.
For example: drug use: no one advocates showing children or adults where to buy drugs, how to cook heroin, snort cocaine, roll their own joints or deal with ‘works’.
For smoking: we do not make cigarettes available in schools, show kids where and how to have chewing tobacco or have free access to tobacco products because ‘kids will do it anyway.’
For drinking: we do not make liqueur available at middle and high schools, we tell kids not to drink, not to drink and drive, and not to make sexual and drug situations worse by losing the ability to think and defend oneself because of alcohol use. Moderation and proper use of alcohol. We hold schools, parents and adults to a high standard to not supply hard alcohol to minors. [ and yes I came from one of those European families where moderation is used with alcohol – and no one in our family has a problem with drinking].
For Driving: we say – keep alert, obey the rules, don’t speed, don’t text, keep aware that you are driving a deadly object with deadly consequences. We say buckle-up, drive under the speed limit, don’t take more than one kid in the car with you, limit distractions.
We don’t say – go ahead – smoke pot, use heroin, binge drink and drive recklessly.
We tell children and others – be careful, stay out of danger, don’t get started with high-risk behavior. We show them how to develop strategies in picking friends, staying positively active, having self-esteem, etc. when dealing with drugs, alcohol, smoking, driving etc. No one enables children to do it, abuse it, or make it free and available in schools without parental knowledge.
There are standards for everything else. Why is it that sex is the one we have lost our way on and people’s heads are in the sand in? why do we bother saying “apply yourself” “get good grades” “try your hardest” in all things except sexual intimacy?
One does not have to be locked in a room to be whole, functional and good. It’s the teaching at home, school, society and the heart that matters. Let’s use the common standards we use in all things with our children to include sexual intimacy too.
People are not animals unless we encourage them to be so. Let’s encourage the best behaviors, in all things. Let’s aim kids high.
Amen joyfromillinois!
Sorry joan, but abstinence until marriage is the healthiest. If both husband and wife have been abstinent before marriage (and remain faithful), they will not contract an STD. If most teens practiced abstinence until marriage, teen pregnancy rates would drop as well.
What are the “physiological or mental benefits sex provides” unmarried teens? If anyone thinks there are mental benefits to having sex as an unmarried teenager, they really need to read http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Science-Casual-Affecting-Children/dp/0802450601