Mac points us to a great example of the dangers of abstinence only education:
pesky’apostrophe: always better than an unexpected period.
Last year in Mobile County, 4,629 new cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were reported—enough instances of the sexually transmitted diseases to account for one out of every 87 people, according to a Press-Register review of state and federal statistics.
That was about three times the rate in New York City and more than twice as high as Washington, D.C.
[…] Statewide, syphilis cases were up 60 percent last year, compared with 2005 (from 583 cases to 931).
Chlamydia has also been on the rise, increasing 44-fold from 509 cases in 1994 to 22,560 in 2006. “And I think we’re seeing just the tip of the iceberg,” Piepho said.
Eight counties—poor and sparsely populated except for No. 2-ranked Montgomery County—had higher STD rates in 2006 than Mobile County, statistics showed.
A lack of education weighs heavily on a county’s rate, health officials said. In Alabama public schools, students are taught abstinence-based sex education as part of a half credit of health education in high school. Students learn that “abstinence is the only protection against pregnancy, HIV/AIDs and STDs,” said state Department of Education spokeswoman Edith Parten.
[…] “Your personal intimacy behavior in any population is generally not something you run around sharing with people,” Knight said, “and you don’t know—in any age group—who you are exposed to by exposing yourself to a partner who swears they’re healthy, swears they’ve never done anything, swears they are saint of the month.
“And guess what? They’re not.”
Please, educate your kids, America. Enough ignorance, ok?
4 Responses
[…] newsdesk wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptA lack of education weighs heavily on a county’s rate, health officials said. In Alabama public schools, students are taught abstinence-based sex education as part of a half credit of health education in high school. … […]
I completely agree and affirm to the fact that ABSTINENCE is the only sure way to remain safe. It is not IDEOLOGY, it is COMMON SENSE and FACT. That’s why I keep it zipped up.
Might work for you, but it doesn’t work for horny kids. They need to know that there are safeguards available and how to use them.
And even if abstinence keeps one safe, it does not keep all safe. Common sense is called that because it is not really very common at all. We aren’t all monks. If you are abstinent and your partner hasn’t been, even though they say they are, then you are at risk. I had an HPV wart flare up and it led to colon cancer, even though I hadn’t had unprotected sex with a partner with a problem for 20 years!
You never know, and that’s the problem.
I have a friend who got cervical cancer because of HPV. right now she is under going chemotherapy and some anti-cancer drugs. . :