“After 10 years and $1.5 billion in public funds these failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs will go down as an ideological boondoggle of historic proportions,” said James Wagoner, President of Advocates for Youth.
“The tragedy is not simply the waste of taxpayer dollars, it is the damage done to the young people who have been on the receiving end of distorted, inaccurate information about condoms and birth control. We have been promoting ignorance in the era of AIDS, and that’s not just bad public health policy, its bad ethics”.
“This report should serve as the final verdict on the failure of the abstinence-only industry in this country,” said William Smith, vice president for public policy of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS). “It shows, once again, that these programs fail miserably in actually helping young people behave more responsibly when it comes to their sexuality,” Smith continued.
Now, I'm no expert on this generations teenagers. I try to avoid them as much as possible. But I remember my teen years, and they included sex (not as much as I would have liked, but more than the parents knew about). Society wrung it's hands about teen sex in my generation. And my parents generation. And my grandparents generation. The only reason that teen sex wasn't a cause for public outcry in my great-grandparents generation was teen marriage (my great-grandmother married at 15 and gave birth to my grandfather 6 months later).
The folks who worry about "morality" have been wringing their collective hands about teen sex for many decades, and our current religionists thought they could do something about it. The fools thought that they could teach our youngsters to deny biology, to deny reality.
Do they remember their own teenage years?
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