Abstinence Only Programs?, What's your take?

Just one question:

How many of us would not be here to read this if this program was in effect many years ago?

Don't fool yourselves, our parents were not saints!

That's not the issue.
The matter I raise concerns teaching the children of christian parents the things which Jesus Christ taught.

He clearly taught against fornication, while showing compassion towards those who were guilty of it.

First, the AIDS virus is spread through bodily fluids. It doesn't just travel by itself -- you can't catch it by touching someone with AIDS, or from a toilet seat, etc. So the size of the holes in a condom have nothing to do with how the virus is spread. It has to do with whether the person has unprotected sex or not. The best way to prevent AIDS is to not have sex. The second best way is to have PROTECTED sex.

I agree that abstinence is God's way. And parents should be teaching this to their children. However, given the high rate of teen pregnancy, pre-marital sex, and STDs among teenagers tells me that they're not listening. But then, when have they ever. . . ?

Second, it has been shown that abstinence-ONLY programs are not working. There are higher instances of teen pregnancy and STDs among students of the abstinence-only programs than sex education programs; it was also shown that the number of teens having sex was the SAME in BOTH programs.

There were a couple studies released over the summer that demonstrated this, including one by US Health and Human Services. This greatly embarrassed the Bush administration, since they have touted abstinence-only programs as being the best way to prevent pregnancies and STDs. As their own studies showed, this is not the case.

In essence, neither program reduces the occurrence of sex that teenagers are having. But the sex education program is actually helping reduce the number of pregnancies and STDs.

While I believe people should wait until they're married before they have sex, I know that many of them don't. Let's face it, there are obviously many MANY occasions where a teen's hormones trump their faith, even among Christian teenagers. It doesn't help that teenagers think they're invincible anyway. So passions ignite and common sense goes right out the window, and the kids think it won't happen to them. But the sad truth -- as the government's own study indicates -- it happens to them more if they don't take some sort of precaution.

So it comes down to this: I don't want my own kids to make a stupid choice and have sex before they're married. But if they go against my wishes, I want them to make a less stupid choice and use a condom to prevent potentially-catastrophic consequences.

Which discussion would you rather have: "I wish you would not have had sex before you were married" or "I wish you would not have gotten pregnant/AIDS/herpes"?


Erik Deckers

I don't think Tassie was saying AIDS is spread by itself. If you read it, she states it travels through the permeable condom. In other words, when people are exchanging their bodily fluids with a condom, AIDS can still be spread.

I also don't think we can rely soley on studies. Statistics can be easily twisted by whatever their agenda is. A stats 100 course will teach this. Also, I have seen other studies where teenagers having protected sex like crazy have a 10x higher rate for girls to get ovarian cysts.
Or something to the like. So, I find studies are a moot point. Remember, studies are what got Vioxx okay'ed by the FDA. The only point I agree with his God's point.
There are consequences to actions. We can't protect irresponsible people forever.

There is another factor here....

Most Kids today are over protected, pampered and unprepared for life.
In Jesu's time most people were married and had some sort of trade or business by the time they were in their mid teens, abstainence was a mog point, it is our society today that has caused a lot of the troubles that our youth encounter...I will stop there.

Very true...

You can tell people not to do something, but if they are set on doing it, they will go ahead and do it.

The right thing to do is to just not have in the first place...but that will never happen.