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No one could've predicted this.
In a troubling reversal, the nation's teen birth rate rose for the first time in 15 years, surprising government health officials and reviving the bitter debate about abstinence-only sex education.
The birth rate had been dropping since its peak in 1991, although the decline had slowed in recent years. On Wednesday, government statisticians said it rose 3 percent from 2005 to 2006.
The reason for the increase is not clear, and federal health officials said it might be a one-year statistical blip, not the beginning of a new upward trend.
However, some experts said they have been expecting a jump. They blamed it on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education that doesn't teach teens how to use condoms and other contraception.
Some key sexually transmitted disease rates have been rising, including syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. The rising teen pregnancy rate is part of the same phenomenon, said Dr. Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health.
"It's not rocket science," she said.
I blame Nancy Pelosi.
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I Blame Bill Clinton!
“Buy Malaysian Rubber”
Zed?
A rise in the teen birth rate may also be an indicator of increasing Social Stress in a chaotic environment.
I blame lesbian western soft porn novels.
“It’s not rocket science.” *snort*
Wait until I tell my teenager.
I do want that t-shirt for her; might have to silkscreen one for her myself for Christmas.
If you look at the state by state break-out from the CDC, the home states of the most religious right voters have the highest rates of teen pregnancy. Those are the states most likely to embrace the abstinence only programs. The only out of curve state that I saw was Utah with a very low rate.
Lovely, another gift that keeps on giving.
Wow, it only took 4 comments before someone busted out a Lynne Cheney reference.
Nice.
Matt Yglesias pointed out a couple days back that one of the defining characteristics of a liberal is a focus on outcomes, a preference for _effective_ policies over policies that are only politically useful or simple moral posturing; while today’s “conservatives” often display the opposite preference. Abstinence-only sex education is one of those areas where these preferences are most sharply delineated.
Hey! I see less avatars on the Lake. That can only be good. Y’all are cute and stuff, but IMHO the avatars make the site look unserious.
Can I get a couple of those T-shirts, too?
*No* one could have predicted blah blah blah blah….
This has probably sent the abortion rate up too, I would imagine.
Of course it could be the forced breeding program begun as the remedy to declining Marine recruitment.
They determined cloning wouldn’t work after Cheney brought Dolly the Sheep home for testing and she lit herself on fire before he got past cocktails.
There’s always Cafepress
I thought our avatars only appeared at our facebook sites. Or are you talking about the avatar of the main poster?
It’s hard to say what I find most offensive about abstinence only. The sheer stupidity of it is bad enough. But the fact that people who push it most vociferously are also the biggest anti-choicers REALLY pisses me off.
I blame hormones and ignorance.
I hear you. Combine that with the evil vaccine that prevents cancer and it’s quite the trifecta.
Blue Texan - the South has always been the leader in all the “naughty” things they preach against - unplanned pregnancy, divorce, etc. I think if you will look at the statistics those evil liberal New England states (where I happen to be at the moment)lead the nation in family stability.
Rayne, I left you an answer on the prior thread.
And also the most likely to complain that condoms are ot 100% effective so why bother teaching proper use?
“Do as we say, not as we do” seems to be the governing ideal of these cretins.
Utah had a low teenage pregnancy rate? Utah? Do they not count the 16 year olds if they’re married to their uncle, is that how that works?
Yeah. Idiots.
Where can I get that young lady’s phone number?
No, no, no….
Just a joke in poor taste but….
This ’screwin’ thing is sort of compelling. Even for us older folks. Good to see the people most affected
by this ignorant Xtian Zombie Death Cultism speaking out.
It’s the American way!
I didn’t like the avatars of the posters on the front page.
Searched the CDC site for “abortion” and found this which shows *both* births and abortion going down until 2001 or so. Nothing current on abortion but one could infer from the now higher birth rates that rising abortion rates correlates with this new trend as well.
Heck of a job, chimpy.
Happy Hanukkah
‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHANUKAH…
OY! WHAT A SHOCK!
SOMEBODY OUTSIDE
WAS PICKING OUR LOCK!
AND THERE AT THE DOOR
STOOD A ‘ZAYDA’ IN BLUE-
AND HE WORE ON HIS KUPP
A BLUE YARMULKA, TOO!
HIS PUNIM WAS SHAIN-
EVERYBODY WOULD LOVE IT!
‘ROUND HIS NECK HUNG A CHAIN
WITH A GOLD MOGEN DOVID!
[Mod Note; Edited by Mod for length. To help keep the FDL servers running smoothly and to avoid any copyright issues, please do not post someone else’s original work in it’s entirety — include an excerpt and a link instead. Thank you. ]
OT
Gordon Prather on antiwar.com hypothesizes that release of Iran NIE is so the neocons can get the idea out that Iran HAD a nuke program, in advance of ElBaradei reporting that there NEVER WAS an Iranian nuke program.
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/20…..prather-4/
Prather’s difficult to listen too; TMI. The crux is about 11 minutes into the program.
perris’s own personal retrospective on “abstanance” and “premarital sex…to me this is as obviouslas the day, it’s simple and nobody has the nerve to say it;
when a person reaches adolescence they have a sex drive, if you believe in god then it’s god that gave it to you, if you don’t believe in god then it’s there because of evolution and there’s nothing you can do about it, it’s as powerful as a commandment from god himself (go forth and multiply) and while some can avoid actual physical sex with another person they will still have their sex in the shadow of sleep
when we are in our mothers womb we don’t need to eat or breath, we aren’t in that stage of development
before we reach adolescence we don’t have a drive to procreate…
however once it’s there, it is there
generations ago people were married while still in their teens, not a great big deal to avoid partnering until you were married, however now it’s rare and frowned on if someone gets married before they reach their twenties
but there it is, you see they want everyone to think sex is evil and then they can control them through “salvation”
if we were to believe going to the bathroom were a sin then those that could resist going to the bathroom would resist until they went to bed, then they would go the the bathroom in bed
others would just go to the bathroom whenever they could
and those that believed it were a sin, they might go crazy because they would believe they were going to hell
cannot be denied…there is no such thing as “just saying no”
sure, some of us can abstain but our bodies will have their due when we sleep
if we were to believe going to the bathroom were a sin then those that could resist going to the bathroom
Except,um, Larry Craig. ;)
There was a story awhile back about a study that had been done where they followed up on kids who took abstinence pledges. I wish I could say I read about in in the course of voracious reading to better inform myself and be a more intelligent citizen, but I heard it from Bill Maher on Real Time and wasn’t sure if he was exaggerating. Turns out the pledgers were getting STD’s and the question obviously arose as to how that could be. Well, they were …. ok, I won’t be crude …. having oral sex and anal intercourse. Why? Because it wasn’t “sex” you see and they could do that and keep their pledges.
It’s all bullshit. The article was in WaPo and LA Times, I think. If I find a link I’ll put it up.
Why? Because it wasn’t “sex”
I blame…Teh CLENIS!
;)
what I find incredible is that these people were all 16 once themselves.
Are they those who held out and resent those who had all the fun instead?
I was having sex at thirteen
wasn’t with anyone else but my body did it on it’s own spontaneously and then I was off to the races
I guess that there is a big need for lots of snowflakes!
screwing abstinence is definitely not off the table. s/
But, Elliott, we’re talking about a clan of world-class hypocrites. What makes you think they weren’t having a little extramarital nookie when they were sixteen? Many are probably having a little extramarital nookie now.
Re: My # 32 — I haven’t done a link in te new format. Hope this works.
It didn’t
Back when Shrub was campaigning for the 2000 election, he was touting the abstinance programs he championed when governor of Texas. He said the programs worked because the teen pregnancy rate went down in Texas.
Of course he didn’t mention that the teen pregnancy rate went down in the whole US. AND that the rate of decline in Texas was near the bottom.
Putz.
Someday, there will be no shame and no hesitation to call Bush a lying bastard.
The link thing isn’t working for me. It’s the March 19, 2005 WaPo, article by Ceci Connolly at page A3: “Teen Pledges Barely Cut STD Rates, Study Says”
Abstinence makes the heart grow blander.
I have no problem with it now.
It’s liberating to just say it. Everybody join in: “Bush is a lying bastard!”
I’ve been liberated for quite a few years then
the lying bastard is lying just now about his mortgage bailout program. lying bastard. not. to. be. trusted.
If my memory of my high school daze serves me, the group most likely to get abortions were the daughters of the most conservative families. You know the ones that never talked about sex. Also common was to “disappear” the child. I guess the hypocrites have fond memories of those awful days.*
* This was pre-Roe.
Let me try. Here goes:
Bush is a lying prick.
Oh, man. Lemme try again.
Dana’s dumb as doghsit.
I just can’t get the words out. Lemme try real slow.
Bush. Is. A. Lying. Bastard.
Yayyyyyy. Did it!!!!!!!!
Ok. I typed “dogshit,” wrong. But I said it right.
See? I knew you could do it.
Whatever “doghsit” may be, you can bet Dana’s that dumb.
I agree with you completely. Trying to teach people (through fear of eternal damnation) not to do something that every cell in their body has been programmed by eons of evolution to scream out to them to do is just kind of silly.
Much better to teach them what it is and how to deal with it with the best outcome for their lives in the long run.
Choose ABSTINENCE ….the condom
http://abstinencethecondom.com/
but she’s cute doghsit
pronounced;
dog hissett
If abstinence is good, teens will believe that multiple abstinence is even better. Multiple cases of forgiveness, and maybe multiple “virginities” (don’t ask…they believe it) and getting awarded multiple rings.
After all, do any of those kids that lapse actually take of their rings and dare face the criticism of their peers and judgemental elders? So they keep their rings on…and lie. Knowing that they are lying, there’s no reason not to continue.
And they remain ignorant about birth control and safe sex issues simply because knowing or asking about such things would target them as NOT BEING ABSTINENT!
You typed doghsit the way it is speeled in Arabic.
Beauty is only skin-deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
If you want to decrease incidents of teen sexuality, train them how to act desperate for it at all times. Although it’s been decades, I can attest to the power of looking desperate in keeping one a virgin…
ROFL! It sure as hell worked for me.
Hard to believe they spent all that money and didn’t bother getting the domain name. I did though…
http://www.abstinenceonly.com
A celebration of non-penetration!
Wingnuts are known for their non-penetrating insights.
you know what would be a great question if the press were doing it’s job?
ask bush out right if he practiced abstanance till he was married
if he DARES to say yes watch the woodworks ooze people from his past to call him the lyer he is
if he doesn’t say yes then there it is anyway
Now’s the time for a series of commercials featuring Princess Jenna and Princess Barbara speaking to teenagers about the joy of abstinence. It’s well known that the young people really admire and relate to the young members of the Royal Bush Family. If the Princesses share their own personal stories and provide sage advice, what could go wrong? The teen pregnancy problem will quickly fade from the national memory.
Ok, guys, OK. I thought I had corrected it quickly enough - before all you “nice” pups busted my chops. Cut me a break, huh? The spell check doesn’t work and I’m just not into doin’ it myself.
And I’m presently having a little trouble wrapping my brain around the concept of “cute dogshit”. It’s not so much a concept as a mental picture that just isn’t commin’ out.
Are you scarlet p. or another freewayblogger?
oh man, have a “journalist” propsose THAT!!!
man I would love to see the look on bush’s face
I’m scarlet p. “the” freewayblogger. reporting from SF.
OT, but speaking of journalists not doing their jobs, I just news Googled “Walter Cronkite” and “Iraq” and there’s absolutely no coverage of his Op-Ed yesterday. Not that I’m at all surprised.
Give ‘em a day to get their spin straight. One does not casually take on Uncle Walter.
*sulks*
Hey great to see you! Glad you found the new FDL house.
Walter Cronkite.
I think they (sic) decided any coverage would draw too much comparison to his Vietnam position and spoil the current narrative that we are winning.
In Sonoma County, the abstinence education money was given to the Catholic Church via their schools to develop materials for use in all schools.
The local crappy paper launded the award of the money but has yet to write a single word on the failure of the program.
I hope all the current corpuent media go under soon.
Comment by raynman thinkprogress thread
Color me gobsmacked, too. I was thinking they must not be counting pregnancies for married teenagers, because there are plenty of those.
I don’t think he’s dry though
there would also be a reporting issue in utah, they would be far less inclined to be honest in any survey
Pearl clutching never seems to go out of style. Goes great with hypocrisy. Sometimes when I meet a sanctimoniously square sour puss, I contemplate the number of flutes she’s played in her life (as she pretends to have never touched a single one).
I would love to make a point by the way;
did Jesus even once say Mary Magdalene was going to hell or needs to stop practicing her trade?
The problem is not education or condoms. Teenagers should not be having sex. Anyone who think otherwise needs therapy. The reality is that teenagers have sex, always have, always will. Condoms are a deperation measure and should be available but only as a stop gap till the real problem is fixed. Abstinance can only work is there is a support structure and honest tools for teens to use to survive until 23 ot 25 when they marry. Religion is anti-sex from the gitgo and not to be truated with the sexuality of our youth. Parents are the only real people who can guide a child through the difficult straights of the teen years. In our country parents have taken leave and then wonder why their children act as if they have had no raiseing. Men in the workplace or women, I do not care but some one needs to be home raising the kids.
THe response to that is that we have to have two incomes to survive. That is hogwash. We need two income to but all the junk that keep us separate. One TV and the family watches it together and learns the concept of give and take. Everyone at the dinner table every night and learn how to talk to each other. Know where your kids are and know their friends and their friends parents. Raising kids is a sacred responsibility and if your kids are not your top priority, you should have used those condoms that you want the kids to wear.
Every one want an easy out. That includes the church. When you have unportected sex - married or not - you need to be ready to spend the next 19 years taking reponsibility for the potential consequence of that decision. Period.
I am an unwanted pregnacy. By the grace of God, or whatever power called us all into existence, I had wonderful adoptive parents. Despite that I have never truly recovered from the separation from my mother. THings happen we experience loss. All I am saying here is we do not need to add more for no reason.
(sorry spell check was not available and I am spelling challenged. Or also know as not dealing well with illogical rules that are not rules)
thanks egregious - took me awhile to figure out the kinks. speaking of which, did you check out my abstinence site? “Anal Abstinence” pix are pretty funny in a not-quite-safe-for-work sort of way…
did Jesus even once say Mary Magdalene was going to hell or needs to stop practicing her trade?
Nothing in the gospels even indicates that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. So, no, he doesn’t.
Butt noooooo…
Wow, I disappear for a couple of weeks and the whole site has changed. Well, not the quality commentary and posts, but everything else.
On to the topic at hand, when I was growing up in smalltown, IN we still got pretty thorough sex education starting in about sixth grade (if I remember correctly).
It certainly didn’t make me have sex any sooner than I would have otherwise, but it certainly helped me have safer sex once I did. Unfortunately the Reagan Revolution happened shortly after my Jr. High years and I bet the quality of sex education has diminished significantly since then.
Now that I have young children in school, I’m concerned they aren’t going to get anything even close to adequate sex education. We can do it ourselves, but some things are just more effective coming from an authority figure outside the family.
We worked hard to get the place in shape before you got back.
IIRC, Jesus prophesied to M Magdalene that she was with a man currently who was not her husband and that she had been with other men also in the biblical sense. A tremendous leap of faith is not required to presume that MM may have been a prostitute. OTOH, she may also have been the wife of Jesus. There is evidence that the stories were changed, especially at the Council of Nicea.
Men in the workplace or women, I do not care but some one needs to be home raising the kids.
What about all those sex-crazed hippies who were raised in the 50s by Ward and June Cleaver?
OT
another gem from joe journalist/lying bastard
Speaking of honesty in surveys
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20…..m/abreak05
So one is getting a VERY biased sample of those willing to respond…perhaps those with a very “evangelical” view about their candidate…or even “Merry Pranksters” who are out to sabotage them.
So we are getting both “astroturfing” when it comes to on-line polls, and potentially selective or erroneous results when it comes to phone polls.
don’t know which way you are going with this but from the beginning of time teenagers were having sex, there bodies insist on them having sex and no amount of education is going to change the biological force
all they can do is forstall, substitute, protect but they cannot avoid
but I think that might be what you are saying as well
That was the unnamed Samaritan woman at the well, not Mary Magdalene.
And yet there is nothing in any of the gospels that mentions any profession for Mary Magdalene, let alone prostitution. The Mary-as-whore story is purely an extra-biblical tradition.
Everyone loves it when the Preznit lies about lying.
Having grown up in the 1950s, the whole family ate dinner together every day. (Mom, Dad, 2 older brothers) I was raised R.C. & went to religious instruction once/week as well as church on Sunday. Both my parents & the chruch were very strict, and preached chastity until marriage. So I had all the support structure you describe.
I still started having sex at age 16.
Bush is a lying bastard.
five short years ago?
Heeeeeipie.
;)
I clearly wish Joe Klein’s parents had used spermicide 55 years ago.
-G
Very funny. No, I was in that glorious Golden Age of Sex, after the pill (though I didn’t get a precription until I was 19), and before AIDS.
the site’s hysterical.
Joe Klein is a shameful fraud of a journalist.
Sussing out fraud in business
I forgot to point out that before I had actual sex with a person of the other gender, I had been practising by myself for several years.
Thanks for sharing that.
thanks, for a while http://www.abstinenceonly.com was the number one abstinence site on the net - went down for a bit and I let it go fallow - busy with the signs and all… 2,000 so far since January… not sure what to do next.
It would be a stunning development for Republics to admit that religious solutions rarely work for secular problems. However, since that admission would require them do actually do something, they will admit nothing.
My generation - the one that came of age in the mid sixties - rebeled against stiffling attempts to conform. Had little to do with having a parent at home to raise the kids. That rebellion was justified, we just managed to throw the baby out with the bath water. As we were a very large generation what we did effected the whole landscape. There was a lot good about being raised by June and Ward. In my home, Father did know best and I was not raised to be anything other than the best me I could be.
We are flawed. The world is not perfect. We must try to be the best us we can be and one of the things that promotes that is not having children have children. The only way to deter that is for parents to be actively involved in their childrens lives. That requires a parent at home. It is a fact of nature, can’t fight it. Government can’t fix it, and neither can the church except to teach that parents have a sacred responsiblity to put children in an exhaulted place in the family. The parents need not be married, do not need to be of opposite sex, but they do need to love their children by birth or by Love at least as well as they treat themselves.
My parents were parents by Love. They gave years of their lives so I might have a good life and they did it with joy.
yep!
Not smart to take your theology from novels like the “Da Vinci Code”. There’s a very good book by a non-evangelical Biblical Scholar named Bart Ehrman on “Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene” that discusses the mash-up regarding the different Mary “Magdalene” stories. He points out that several of the tales associated with Mary M. are actually about the other Mary’s in the Gospels…and the one tale about the ‘Woman Adulteress” (”May the one amongst you who has not sinned cast the first stone”) is actually likely a 4th Century addition, probably taken from another tale, written in the margin as a commentary, and then inserted. Ehrman does argue that Mary Magdalene was likely downgraded from her role as the “original messenger” over time (long before the various Church Councils). After all, she and the other women at the tomb were the ones trusted to see Jesus in his corporeal resurrected state, and told to carry that message back to the male apostles….who of course “disbelieved” because they were chauvinist, male Middle Easterners.
But the wife stuff is really hard to find without a good dollop of imagination, and the prostitute stuff…that’s mainly stuff generated by those trying to devalue Mary Magdalene’s status as a Disciple (and the first Apostle TO the Church).
Condoleezza R. has a testimonial so it’s got to be a real serious site.
New thread above!
About our NYC MeetUp last evening:
I LOVED meeting the other Pups. I was so happy the forecast didn’t mention any snow accumulation because the route to the train station has two steep hills. The train got into Grand Central about 5:15 during evening rush hours. I got a taxi a few blocks away and got to the pub during a snow shower. It felt a bit funny entering to meet “friends” not knowing what they look like. I spotted a table with four people at the back of the lounge and greeted them with “Do the letters FDL have any meaning for you?” I got an immediate warm welcome. On my left was BlueJeansNTS, my right was SanderO (he uses a continental pronounciation for that!!), across sat eCAHN, and Petrucca. Apologies if I misspelled anyone’s name wrong.
And THEN WE STARTED TALKING AND DIDN’T STOP. Very lively. We sipped some bar offerings and ordered food. SanderO HAD to Have Dessert. I think we all had Profiteroles. But the talking never stopped. Some conversations switched and some discussions had no ending. I hope we’ll get together again.
I’m in NY visiting family (and it’s sooo cold here). The MeetUp was a special treat, and on short notice. My voting is in FL’s 13th Cong. District, formerly rep’ed by Katherine Harris. She ran for the Senate against Bill Nelson (not a prize by any means; he didn’t even campaign for his certain re-election). Harris did poorly. Her vacated seat was sought by (R) Vern Buchanan, a rich guy, and Christine Jennings (D). There were 18K undervotes in that race, which was won by Buchanan by about 370 votes. I believe that election is still ontested. … I’m signed up for MegaVote and Buchanan’s voting record is predictably R, never as I would want. E-mails I’ve sent are not answered. Grrrr.
Is anyone is central/west coast FL considering a MeetUp?
The unnamed Samaritan woman at the well - an heretical (Ideological) ‘enemy’ to the Jews of Jerusalem - was the first person to whom Jesus revealed that he was, indeed, the Messiah.
http://www.fprespa.org/pdfs/Woman_at_the_Well.pdf
Having the family in tact does not gaurantee perfection. Nothing does. The idea here is that you were not pregnant at 13 after having sex at school since you were 9.
Just because you can not ahve perfection is no reason not to try to so what you can. There is no better protection against unwanted pregnacy than the involvement of the parents in a childs life. It matter not if the best still allows error.
If you had cancer and the doctor gave you several options none of which were garanteed to work, would you take no option just becasue the ones offered might not work. I think you take the best option.
If is our children’s lives we are dealing with, and our grandchildrens lives as well.
Exactly true…and she supposedly had several husbands. But we have to remember that divorce and remarriage was not considered “spiritually” incorrect by the Pharisees. It’s not clear what the view of Samaritans was on this issue at that time, though the Samaritans was an early offshoot of Judaism (following the Torah but not the subsequent Prophetic texts). Most of those in the “Judaeo” tradition considered them heretics as much as modern Christians consider Mormons “out there”.
Jesus seems to have taken a much more strict line on the issue of multiple marriages and remarriage. He didn’t appear to accept divorce and likely even thought that remarriage after death was not acceptable.
The things you learn by hanging out at the Lake. Now I know what CLENIS is and also about teh abstinenceonly.com (loved the letter from Condoleeza R.). On to upstairs.
short or long, it’s fun.
I rather think we have a lot more to learn from Western Northern European countries rather than the nations of Latin America where abortions are restricted to saving the life of the mother, usually after a legal fight.
But it doesn’t stop abortions or “home-made” contraceptive methods…and the terrible medical toll on women that results from these.
http://www.plannedparenthood.o…..mexico.htm
Bush & Co. would break out in hives at the sight of my daughter’s dorm room. She’s the RA and next to her computer is the big bowl o’ condoms. It’s really rather cute. Being an RA at a liberal-arts college that actually encourages independent thinking, she gives you the choice of colors, textures, and of course, old-school Trojans. Heh. Funny being a dad these days…
Which of course would all be stopped or at least severely curtailed by use of condoms or femi-doms, but of course having stuff like that in your purse or wallet means that — GASP! — you planned to have sex, and planning to have sex makes you a SLUT! Eeeeeeek!
“Western Northern European”
Hmm…you mean Northern? Or North Western?
The Pope’s Prophylactics
I have this vision of acolytes preparing the Pope’s food in the Vatican kitchens.
In this day and age they are appropriately wearing latex sheaths on their hands. Each finger is covered; ten little condoms for the Pope’s oral hygiene.
But when it comes to genitalia..icky, icky…Pius and Paul…forswear protection in Christ’s name…you’all.