our county newspaper, the Whatcom Independent, has an interesting article on page 2 this week (march 16-22): Sex ed changes - Faced with skyrocketing teen pregnancies, abortions and STIs, Planned Parenthood adopts European approach. quoted highlights from the article by Melanie Valm follow.
“...participated in a European Study Tour sponsored by Advocates for Youth...takes participants to France, Germany and the Netherlands to help them understand why the United States has significantly higher rates...than other industrialized nations.”
“In the European cities they visited, the schools, television, billboards, films, internet, pharmacies and health care provider offices provided information and education campaigns that were widespread and consistent. The message wasn’t ‘Don’t have sex until you’re married.’ Instead the information focused on how to have safe sex, respect yourself and your partner and act responsibly.”
“When you give young people rights and respect, they are more responsible...”
“...with a hyper-sexualized culture such as ours, how can we...turn around and tell teens not to have sex?”
“...will help teens to have conscious sex...thinking about the decision to have sex before the moment arises, and not using drugs or alcohol as a crutch...confidant enough in their decision to tell mom and dad.”
“When we talk about rights, respect and responsibility, we are talking about family values.”
i agree, i agree, but it’ll never fly in the midwest.
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I agree. The midwest is clearly experiencing an inquisition - not unlike the middle ages version. Anyone who doesn't agree with the Fundamentalist Christians is a heretic and their voice will not be heard.
ReplyDeleteJust for fun, I looked up "inquisition" and stumbled across an interesting quote in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
"Religion being a matter of the will, it cannot be forced on anyone; in this matter it is better to employ words than blows. Of what use is cruelty? What has the rack to do with piety? Surely there is no connection between truth and violence, between justice and cruelty . . . . It is true that nothing is so important as religion, and one must defend it at any cost. It is true that it must be protected, but by dying for it, not by killing others; by long-suffering, not by violence; by faith, not by crime. If you attempt to defend religion with bloodshed and torture, what you do is not defense, but desecration and insult. For nothing is so intrinsically a matter of free will as religion."
The author's name was Lactantius. Surprisingly, he wrote the above opinion in 308 A.D.
Not surprisingly, he was condemmed as a heretic.
heh -- yeah, i was surprised until i got to your last sentence, then cynically not surprised at all.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I hadn't seen that.
ReplyDeleteOne aspect of (to harp upon a similar topic) pro-life mentality that hadn't occured to me until I read a couple of things recently is that pro-lifers appear not to even have thought about penalizing the women themselves who have or want to have abortions -- the law in SD for example only has ramifications for the doctors.
Why should this be the case? If a wife hires a hitman to kill her husband, she certainly doesn't get off scot free. The answer seems to be that pro-lifers blindly assume the woman is somehow the victim. Because clearly she couldn't have a legitimate opinion or thought-process about abortion that leads her to conclude she shouldn't have the baby or anything. Related: seen this?
hahaha -- veeerrry funny cartoon!
ReplyDelete