What do you think about sex ed?

[KittenKoder]

Um, that IS trying to make it appealing.

I guess maybe if you consider that appealing.

Immie

If you're a dumb kid who's running scared because she just found out that her boyfriend knocked her up? Yeah, it's appealing to think that you can just make it all go away, and tell yourself that you're being a "mature woman" who's just "exercising her rights", instead of doing the equivalent of hiding your head under the blankets.

Though I am against abortion for that purpose, I will ask this:

How do you propose we avoid that situation altogether?

 

[Cecilie1200]

I guess maybe if you consider that appealing.

Immie

If you're a dumb kid who's running scared because she just found out that her boyfriend knocked her up? Yeah, it's appealing to think that you can just make it all go away, and tell yourself that you're being a "mature woman" who's just "exercising her rights", instead of doing the equivalent of hiding your head under the blankets.

Though I am against abortion for that purpose, I will ask this:

How do you propose we avoid that situation altogether?

I wasn't aware that I was making any proposals or trying to avoid any situations. I simply stated a fact. The rhetoric used by Planned Parenthood and their ilk concerning "rights" and the "hate-filled right" serves no other purpose than to try to make abortion appear more appealing.

 

[KittenKoder]

If you're a dumb kid who's running scared because she just found out that her boyfriend knocked her up? Yeah, it's appealing to think that you can just make it all go away, and tell yourself that you're being a "mature woman" who's just "exercising her rights", instead of doing the equivalent of hiding your head under the blankets.

Though I am against abortion for that purpose, I will ask this:

How do you propose we avoid that situation altogether?

I wasn't aware that I was making any proposals or trying to avoid any situations. I simply stated a fact. The rhetoric used by Planned Parenthood and their ilk concerning "rights" and the "hate-filled right" serves no other purpose than to try to make abortion appear more appealing.

Oddly, I don't like Planned Parenthood for a completely opposite reason. I asked out of curiosity more than making a point though, there is a chance I will have a related point to make after hearing the answer but I am not seeking it. The thing is, that abortion is actually a minor technique that PP offers information on, it's just one of many "options" they offer information on really.

 

[Immanuel]

Um, that IS trying to make it appealing.

I guess maybe if you consider that appealing.

Immie

If you're a dumb kid who's running scared because she just found out that her boyfriend knocked her up? Yeah, it's appealing to think that you can just make it all go away, and tell yourself that you're being a "mature woman" who's just "exercising her rights", instead of doing the equivalent of hiding your head under the blankets.

Okay, I'll give you that. I was thinking more of the 5th grade girl being convinced that abortion is her right and no one has the right to take it away from her.

Immie

 

[Cecilie1200]

I guess maybe if you consider that appealing.

Immie

If you're a dumb kid who's running scared because she just found out that her boyfriend knocked her up? Yeah, it's appealing to think that you can just make it all go away, and tell yourself that you're being a "mature woman" who's just "exercising her rights", instead of doing the equivalent of hiding your head under the blankets.

Okay, I'll give you that. I was thinking more of the 5th grade girl being convinced that abortion is her right and no one has the right to take it away from her.

Immie

Planting seeds for later on when that 5th grader is in high school (or middle school, these days) and gets knocked up.

 

[Yukon]

I can only assume that there is a least one female posting on this site who can think for herself? Surely one of you wants to control your own reproductive system?

 

[KittenKoder]

I can only assume that there is a least one female posting on this site who can think for herself? Surely one of you wants to control your own reproductive system?

WTF? Are you going against your own church now?

 

[Immanuel]

Planting seeds for later on when that 5th grader is in high school (or middle school, these days) and gets knocked up.

I guess maybe it is just impossible for me to imagine the idea of abortion to be appealing by any stretch of the imagination. Just a slight hangup I seem to have.

Immie

 

[Cecilie1200]

Planting seeds for later on when that 5th grader is in high school (or middle school, these days) and gets knocked up.

I guess maybe it is just impossible for me to imagine the idea of abortion to be appealing by any stretch of the imagination. Just a slight hangup I seem to have.

Immie

I'm betting that owes a lot to you being educated and informed about what's actually involved.

 

[Immanuel]

Planting seeds for later on when that 5th grader is in high school (or middle school, these days) and gets knocked up.

I guess maybe it is just impossible for me to imagine the idea of abortion to be appealing by any stretch of the imagination. Just a slight hangup I seem to have.

Immie

I'm betting that owes a lot to you being educated and informed about what's actually involved.

Probably so, but I'd rather be in the dark on that one.

Immie

 

[Cecilie1200]

I guess maybe it is just impossible for me to imagine the idea of abortion to be appealing by any stretch of the imagination. Just a slight hangup I seem to have.

Immie

I'm betting that owes a lot to you being educated and informed about what's actually involved.

Probably so, but I'd rather be in the dark on that one.

Immie

I hear you. Man's barbaric inhumanity to man isn't exactly an image one likes carrying in one's head.

 

[Old Rocks]

I am curious for your honest feedback.

Pregnancy, STDs on the Rise Again Among U.S. Teens

Birth rates among U.S. teens increased in 2006 and 2007, following large declines from 1991 to 2005, according to a new U.S. government study


U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers analyzed national data from 2002-2007. Among their findings:

About one-third of adolescents hadn't received instruction on methods of birth control before age 18.

In 2004, there were about 745,000 pregnancies among females younger than age 20. This included an estimated 16,000 pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14.

Syphilis cases among young people aged 15 to 24 have increased in both males and females in recent years.

In 2006, about one million young people aged 10 to 24 were reported to have chlamydia, gonorrhea or syphilis. Nearly one-quarter of females aged 15 to 19, and 45 percent of females aged 20 to 24 had a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection during 2003-2004.

From 1997 to 2006, rates of AIDS cases among males aged 15 to 24 increased.

In 2006, the majority of new diagnoses of HIV infection among young people occurred among males and those aged 20 to 24.

From 2004 to 2006, about 100,000 females aged 10 to 24 visited a hospital emergency department for nonfatal sexual assault, including 30,000 females aged 10 to 14.

Pregnancy, STDs on the Rise Again Among U.S. Teens - ABC News

Is this partly attributable to abstinence only education? What might be leading to worse trends (STDs and etc) among teens?

I'm curious..how can it be attributed to "absintence only" education when "abstinence only" education doesn't exist except in tiny, isolated groups.

These increase is not in populations of home-schooled Christian kids. It's in the cities. And it's more evidence that making abortion available, teaching kids that it's okay to have sex because there's a "cure" for whatever results, and refusing to teach them any sense of responsibility has negative consequences. Not positive.

Sure, is that why the rate among Evangelicals is so much higher than for the general population? In fact, the only group with a higher unwed pregnancy rate than white evangelicals, is black evangelicals.

 

[Immanuel]

Sure, is that why the rate among Evangelicals is so much higher than for the general population? In fact, the only group with a higher unwed pregnancy rate than white evangelicals, is black evangelicals.

Link? please.

Immie

 

[Old Rocks]

A handful of social scientists and family-law scholars have recently begun looking closely at this split. Last year, Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, published a startling book called “Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers,” and he is working on a follow-up that includes a section titled “Red Sex, Blue Sex.” His findings are drawn from a national survey that Regnerus and his colleagues conducted of some thirty-four hundred thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds, and from a comprehensive government study of adolescent health known as Add Health. Regnerus argues that religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical. The vast majority of white evangelical adolescents—seventy-four per cent—say that they believe in abstaining from sex before marriage. (Only half of mainline Protestants, and a quarter of Jews, say that they believe in abstinence.) Moreover, among the major religious groups, evangelical virgins are the least likely to anticipate that sex will be pleasurable, and the most likely to believe that having sex will cause their partners to lose respect for them. (Jews most often cite pleasure as a reason to have sex, and say that an unplanned pregnancy would be an embarrassment.) But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

Dept. of Disputation: Red Sex, Blue Sex : The New Yorker

 

[Old Rocks]

Among blue-state social liberals, commitment to the institution of marriage tends to be unspoken or discreet, but marriage in practice typically works pretty well. Two family-law scholars, Naomi Cahn, of George Washington University, and June Carbone, of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, are writing a book on the subject, and they argue that “red families” and “blue families” are “living different lives, with different moral imperatives.” (They emphasize that the Republican-Democrat divide is less important than the higher concentration of “moral-values voters” in red states.) In 2004, the states with the highest divorce rates were Nevada, Arkansas, Wyoming, Idaho, and West Virginia (all red states in the 2004 election); those with the lowest were Illinois, Massachusetts, Iowa, Minnesota, and New Jersey. The highest teen-pregnancy rates were in Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Texas (all red); the lowest were in North Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Maine (blue except for North Dakota). “The ‘blue states’ of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic have lower teen birthrates, higher use of abortion, and lower percentages of teen births within marriage,” Cahn and Carbone observe. They also note that people start families earlier in red states—in part because they are more inclined to deal with an unplanned pregnancy by marrying rather than by seeking an abortion.

Of all variables, the age at marriage may be the pivotal difference between red and blue families. The five states with the lowest median age at marriage are Utah, Oklahoma, Idaho, Arkansas, and Kentucky, all red states, while those with the highest are all blue: Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey. The red-state model puts couples at greater risk for divorce; women who marry before their mid-twenties are significantly more likely to divorce than those who marry later. And younger couples are more likely to be contending with two of the biggest stressors on a marriage: financial struggles and the birth of a baby before, or soon after, the wedding.

LiveLeak.com - Why do so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant?

 

[Immanuel]

A handful of social scientists and family-law scholars have recently begun looking closely at this split. Last year, Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, published a startling book called “Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers,” and he is working on a follow-up that includes a section titled “Red Sex, Blue Sex.”

Dept. of Disputation: Red Sex, Blue Sex : The New Yorker

First, thank you for the link. I would rather read what I know you are reading than searching and finding who knows how many differing sets of statistics.

Second, I did not see anything that supports your statement that says the rate of evangelical unwed pregnancies is higher than that of the general population. It did say evangelicals are active earlier (note this) than other religious groups. It said nothing about general population.

Third, the term evangelical means different things to different people. For instance, I am a Lutheran. I consider Lutheran to be mainline protestant. Then again there are people who do not go to any church at all who consider themselves Christian and when asked what faith they are will say Christian many of those will say evangelical christian. The same goes for the term, "born again". Many people who have never even entered a church will say they are born again Christians and they don't even know what the term born again applies to edit: but it sounds good to them.

Fourth, would all those people who don't go to church regularly or at all who claim Christianity as their faith and believe me there are millions of them in this country alone be lumped into the category of "evangelical christian"?

I don't know the answer to that. Just wondering how Mr. Regnerus categorized his sample. Nor am I saying you are wrong based on my questions.

Immie

 

[Immanuel]

Something interesting from your second link and again, thank you for providing it.

Religious belief apparently does make a potent difference in behavior for one group of evangelical teen-agers: those who score highest on measures of religiosity—such as how often they go to church, or how often they pray at home. But many Americans who identify themselves as evangelicals, and who hold socially conservative beliefs, aren’t deeply observant.

Even more important than religious conviction, Regnerus argues, is how “embedded” a teen-ager is in a network of friends, family, and institutions that reinforce his or her goal of delaying sex, and that offer a plausible alternative to America’s sexed-up consumer culture. A church, of course, isn’t the only way to provide a cohesive sense of community. Close-knit families make a difference. Teen-agers who live with both biological parents are more likely to be virgins than those who do not. And adolescents who say that their families understand them, pay attention to their concerns, and have fun with them are more likely to delay intercourse, regardless of religiosity.

Immie

 

[Anguille]

Planting seeds for later on when that 5th grader is in high school (or middle school, these days) and gets knocked up.

I guess maybe it is just impossible for me to imagine the idea of abortion to be appealing by any stretch of the imagination. Just a slight hangup I seem to have.

Immie

Since you'll never be in a position to need one, you have the luxury of not ever having to find the idea of abortion appealing.
Your hang up is that you are a man.

 

[Immanuel]

Planting seeds for later on when that 5th grader is in high school (or middle school, these days) and gets knocked up.

I guess maybe it is just impossible for me to imagine the idea of abortion to be appealing by any stretch of the imagination. Just a slight hangup I seem to have.

Immie

Since you'll never be in a position to need one, you have the luxury of not ever having to find the idea of abortion appealing.
Your hang up is that you are a man.

Thank God for small favors!!!!!!

Hey! I have two daughters to worry about as well and as a loving and caring dad, well, they're still not appealing.

Immie

 

[Anguille]

Sure, is that why the rate among Evangelicals is so much higher than for the general population? In fact, the only group with a higher unwed pregnancy rate than white evangelicals, is black evangelicals.

Actually it's black Protestants in general, not just evangelicals.