Turn to page 34 of Donald Trump’s budget and you will see that while Il Duce wants to spend $598 billion less on keeping Americans healthy, he is willing to spend $277 million more on one health-related initiative that makes women worse off:
Donald Trump, who’s on his third marriage and bragged about cheating on his wife and trying to seduce married women, wants to spend more money telling kids not to have sex.
A 2011 study found that an “increasing emphasis on abstinence education is positively correlated with teenage pregnancy and birth rates.” Additionally, the states with the highest teen pregnancy rates — Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi — have policies that emphasize abstinence-only sexual education. The Guttmacher Institute also found that “no program of any kind has ever shown success in convincing young people to postpone sex from age 17, when they typically first have intercourse, until marriage,” and that teens who claim to practice abstinence often still have oral sex, which can put them at risk of STDs even if they aren’t having intercourse [Lisa Ryan, “Trump’s Proposed Budget Would Invest $277 Million in Abstinence-Only Education,” The Cut, 2017.05.24].
Boosting abstinence-only education, in complete contradiction of his own chracter and example, is one more sign that Trump views the budget as a conservative comedy routine, not a serious governing document.
Is there something in there stating that it would exclude other education?
Anything to take try to take away the growing cesspool of russian involvement in our government. The born again crowd is eating this stuff up because it sure as hell did not work for them. In the meantime, the russian coup continues. BTW, Macron, the new prez of France, called out Putin in person for his meddling in their election. Wish we had leadership here that could find their spine.
Good question, Tyler! If I understand it right, the PREP portion of that budget line was the more comprehensive sex ed that Obama won funding for. However, the concern is that Trump will play to the base by bringing back to abstinence-only sham. The HHS detail lists PREP and Abstinence Education as separate budget lines.
Here comes yer future if you can’t get rid of wingnuts- https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-bill-could-send-people-to-jail-for-driving-a-woman-to-an-abortion/
The receptionist who booked the appointment is possibly liable for jail time, too.
Now we have voodoo healthcare.
So… in teaching abstinence, what is one to tell to a person who was raped as a child or is still living in an abusive home? This isn’t an uncommon issue either.
Sigh. What a big ole scam this is. Just like “drug testing” for food stamps, this is nothing but a giveway to corporations that want to push this propaganda, even when they don’t believe it themselves.
Who can forget, the daughter of Sarah Palin (Bristol) who was paid over a quarter of a million dollars to do the ole “abstinence only” speaking tour – only to announce, that she was pregnant when NOT practicing abstinence only!
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/06/bristol-palin-pregnant
How kind of Trump to spend so much money to promote abstinence only, I’d of thought he would be promoting neutering.
Ok, add this subject to the list of insane Republican policy ideas: 1. Poverty is only a state of mind
2. Quality of life is just a state of the heart
3. Abstinence only sex education can overcome the state of raging hormones
Yes, Donald “I moved on her like a bitch” Trump is stepping up for abstinence. Irony blew its brains out in disgust.
One of the benefits of being older than dirt is remembering when school based sex education was introduced around 1960. It was necessary because the out-of -wedlock birthrate was 5%. Abortion was prohibited as was prescribing birth control to single women and girls.
Fifty years of sex education, easy access to abortion and birth control later, and the out-of-wedlock birth rate is 50%.
Normally, when something doesn’t work, you junk it. There comes a time when you realize a set of new tires is not going to get you anywhere. It’s like marijuana prohibition; it doesn’t work. What part of “sex education doesn’t work” do you not understand? Junk it. Go back to teaching maths.
Meanwhile, what might work, and would have actually solved the human trafficking prosecution difficulty of having to prove the 16 & 17 year old prostitutes were coerced, would be to simply raise the age of consent to 18. Since fathers have abdicated their time-honored obligation to put the fear of God in their daughters’ boyfriends, maybe the county sheriffs can do it. And it would take only a birth certificate to lock up a pimp or john employing an underage hooker.
So if sex education is taken out of the schools teens will mysteriously quit having sex. Gee, I didn’t know it could be that easy.
Doesn’t “Just Say No” seem a lot less violent than killing the unborn and selling the baby parts?
(1) This isn’t a debate about abortion.
(2) I casually tell my daughter and my female students, “No boys until you’re 30!” I also recognize that I am not offering a comprehensive sexual education curriculum.
(3) Jenny’s statement is as true for abstinence education as it is for abortion policy: bleating absolutes and being single-issue Puritan voters won’t solve any problems.
(4) You want fewer abortions? Teach kids about sex and birth control.
Exactly right, Cory. How does that ole saying go? If we always do what we’ve always done, we will always get what we always got. That’s not “problem” solving at all. Throwing tax payer money at an issue just to please the religious right when it doesn’t work to solve an issue, is just ridiculous.
Meanwhile, Colorado actually used taxpayer money to address unwanted pregnancies (thus, reducing abortion) and it worked! And it had not a darn thing to do with “abstinence only”. THAT is money well spent (and typical, GOP tried to thwart it. Thankfully, they didn’t succeed.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/science/colorados-push-against-teenage-pregnancies-is-a-startling-success.html
Old Sarge … You’re wrong and many things you believe are also. Do you watch Fox News and listen to right wing radio, by any chance?
Let’s try abstinence only drinking, drugs, and driver’s ed.
Porter– Actually I watch and read extensively. I have CNN on now. I was reading this blog. Earlier I was pursuing Trawlers.
What I posted was easy to understand. It was a simple statement “”Doesn’t “Just Say No” seem a lot less violent than killing the unborn and selling the baby parts?””.
If a simple “Just Say No” program doesn’t seem less violent to you, as opposed to unwanted pregnancies and then the killing of that child, I don’t know what I can do for you. I am surprised you took so much offense to a simple statement. Please don’t go beat a child or push an elderly person down in protest. . .
Old Sarge, your “just say no” society, sounds great if you are one of the people who can “just say no.” As for fertile women living under the “just say no” doctrine, it seems a bit troubling that all women can’t “just say no” to the rapists out there, and can’t “just say no” to fetal developmental problems, and can’t “just say no” to developing cancer or other diseases and health problems that threaten their health and life if a pregnancy is not terminated, and can’t “just say no” to contraception failure, and “can’t say no” to serious mental health issues, among other things.
Simple solutions like telling women to “just say know” seem to be an escapist way to avoid actually considering the real life circumstances faced by millions of women and girls we have never met, and whom we know nothing about. Reality strikes me as a bit more complicated.
bearcreekbat: “sounds great if you are one of the people who can “just say no.””
I PROMISE YOU I AM NOT SIMPLY TRYING TO BAIT YOU.
Humans are not simple animals. You have the ability to resist your animal urges. You don not have to rape someone because you are in heat. In a civilized society we treat fellow humans with respect.
We used to spray dogs with the hose when they couldn’t control themselves. “That” is the primary difference between animals and humans “moral thought”.
I hope by now you have risen above the level of a simple animal.
OldSarg says “We used to spray dogs with the hose when they couldn’t control themselves. “That” is the primary difference between animals and humans “moral thought”.
That may be how it used to be, but times have changed. Now we elect humans that can’t control themselves President of the United States.
Darin; you’re right again. Bill’s acts against the intern and his rapes of other women were beyond pale. How our nation ever arrived as such a point as to ignore the truth, watch the media protect him and then have his shrew of a wife to attack the victims is beyond belief. Good input!
OldSarg, I was including Bill in the list, but you seem to be getting senile in your old age as you neglected to mention our current Groper in Chief whose lack of impulse control is legendary. Or are you just that partisan?
Darin; you’re right again. Bill’s acts against the intern and his rapes of other women were beyond pale
Monica Lewinski was in her 20s, she was way above age of consent and she was a willing participant.
Now, OldSarg- where is any factual proof that WJC raped anyone? You know what? It doesn’t exist. Just careless charges tossed at the wall to see if anything would stick.
That is the wingnut way. 35 years of baseless, false and simply made up excuses to investigate every aspect of the Clinton’s lives has produced one ancillary charge against Bill.
Up from the rabbit-hole: one’s position on abortion has no bearing on the fact that abstinence-only education does not work.