Sex education and open health-care access: good and practical advice, in this film, from the health-care worker who is on the front-lines which, of course, is opposed by many influential fundamentalist mega-churches, religious politicians, and other moralists who want to force others into the rigid rules of religion and into ignorance.

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The BORED Again
Stink Tanks and
FAUXTIANS need more clones.
To pay for and fight their phony WAR.
The Stupider The Better!
Is this the best we can do?
It is King George's


The Shrub’s
Fare Well tour.
I wish it was that easy!
McPain The Hanoi Candidate is selling a
100 more Years!
How Draconian?
Easy for him to say
from
6 feet under.

Support the Troops
STOP Feeding them into a Meat Grinder
Bring them Home.
Give them an education and a job instead.

The Corpirates and Fauxtians
Say they care a lot about Fetuses and telling
Everyone else what to do with their bodies.
But, once your born
They want nothing to do with you!
Their compassion ends.
Life is sacred, Blah, Blah, Blah!
No health care
No jobs
No housing
No Sex Education
No college
No arts
No food
But,
They've Got WAR!
ENDLESS WAR!

A WAR on this and a new WAR on that.
Forget about fixing anything!
That would actually do something and be too easy.

It is perfectly Kosher to drop
The Mother of all Bombs
On a Pregnant Iraqi Women
Talk about Planned Parenthood!
In their Bushzarro World!

Everything they say is a lie.
Everything they do is harmful for Children, Animals and other living things.
They are Evil.

Another 200 Billion for
Dead Eye and Bush's War Machine.
None for you!
Another 500 billion to bail out The Banks
None for you!
100's of Billion to bail out Merrill Lynch and The Schlock Market!
None for you!
Get the Message?

A Saudi Sheik owns Citi Bank.
SORRY!
We're broke,
NONE for You!

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I agree with sex education, health care and contraceptive access. But this debate over what lectures schools should deliver has been going on since 1910, and it has become frighteningly narrow, stereotypial, and more destructive. We have now accumulated hundreds of studies that basically show that it doesn't matter much (or it can't be determined whether it matters) what schools teach in terms of effects on what we call "teen pregnancy". There are also a handfull of studies that show an effect, and both sex education and abstinence promoters are touting the selected ones that favor their positions. (The best to date, even though it is severely limited, is in the Journal of Adolescent Health, 2008, p 344). Meanwhile, the price of this bitter argument over what schools teach is very high. For one, it perpetuates sexist, racist concepts such as "teen pregnancy" that vilify and blame teen girls (whose pregnancies overwhelmingly involve adult male partners--why don't we call this "adult impregnation of teens"?) and poorer young women (who solid studies show are making a rational economic choice to have babies at early ages). For another, the vitriolic sex-ed quarrel has completely buried the powerful effects of poverty and poor educational opportunity, which have been massively connected to higher rates of pregnancy, birth, and STI at younger ages. In fact, sex-ed and abstinence lobbies routinely ignore these huge socioeconomic factors in "teen pregnancy" and soothe politicians and policy makers that cosmetic solutions like school curriculums can solve this "problem." Finally, this endless argument has fostered increasingly prejudicial myths: that "teen pregnancy" among poorer populations is a "social problem" imposing "social costs;" that its recent decline can be credited to sex-ed and/or abstinence promotions (in fact, the decline occurred only among MARRIED teens and their adult husbands, hardly the group school programs targeted); and that the main reason European nations have lower rates is their sex-ed programs (in fact, where US teens enjoy poverty rates as low as those typical in Western Europe, US youth have low pregnancy rates like those in Europe). I think those progressive groups that promote sexuality education should adopt a more responsible, expansive stance that demands strong government initiatives to cut out the poisonous myths, reduce the US's staggering rate of youth poverty, and stop relying on panaceas. --http://www.YouthFacts.org

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What is a side-effect?

This is a term that is also used for pharmaceuticals and food additives.

If sex education impacts the rate at which men impregnate teenage girls, then these results are effects. Calling them side-effects is equivocation.

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Sex is used to sell everything and is glorified beyond belief. Pregnancy among celebrities is touted by attention and "isn't that wonderfuls". It must appear to be glamorous to many teenagers, and yet they are being given the message that they shouldn't partake of the forbidden fruit.

The truth is that most young people today already know more about sex than the people who attempt to teach sex ed classes.

Why can't we accept that sex is just another bodily function or drive that will happen with or without programs of abstinence. We would all be better served by open and honest discussion of sex and its consequences,by the absence of religious attempts to control and create guilt,by the availability of contraceptives and by freedom of choice.

Countless lives have been changed dramatically and,too often,tragically because of our conflicting puritanical ideals and the glamorization of sex and pregnancy. As long as adults exploit sexual activities via advertizing, movies and celebrity worship there will be undesirable teen pregnancy.

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Here's what I think. I'm tired of sex ed being called sex ed. All I was taught in "sex ed" is how to have babies/avoid having babies and avoid getting STIs. I was not taught how to please my partner or make sure I received pleasure. I was not taught how to tell if my relationship(s) was/were healthy for me. I was not taught about gay/lesbian/bisexual/pansexual sexuality, nor was I taught about polyamoury. I was not taught about the mechanics or psychology of BDSM.

This gave me a very unhealthy view of sexuality and sex in general. This view was not corrected until I reached university. I think it's time we started teaching LOVEmaking instead of babymaking. Denying adolescent sexuality is both naive and dangerous. They're going to be forging relationships, so we need to make sure that these relationships are healthy and happy. It's hard to expect responsibility from our teens when we're not showing it ourselves.

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