You are taking a heavier economic, emotional, and social loss supporting unwanted children than if you supported preventing those children from happening in the first place with condoms and birth controll. But if you want to be stubborn and shell out more from your wallet to support your religious ideals by all means it is your right.

We could significantly lower abortion rates in this country by doing so.

Giving free condoms and birth control would PREVENT an abortion from ever occuring. It would cost less than supporting unwanted children (who are likely to become criminals). Aren't you interested in lowering the number of abortion or was that just hot air?

Teaching our children abstinence only is not responsible. It has become painfully transparent over the years that doing this will not improve our teen-age birth rate. Pretending that we can teach our kids abstinence only and not actually LOOKING at the effects is irresponsible. And stupid.

Teaching our children RESPONSIBILITY in sexual activity, if they choose to have it, IS responsible.

I still don't get why people are talking about "paying for other people's mistakes" here. I don't see anybody advocating "paying for other people's mistakes".
Since our system obviously CURRENTLY INCLUDES some aspects of "paying for other people's mistakes", it seems obvious that we should look at the BEST WAY TO MINIMIZE those "mistakes".

And whining about "paying for other people's mistakes" is not addressing the issue of WHAT TO DO about preventing other people from having those "mistakes".

Five Years of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education: Assessing the Impact

Since 1991, rates of teenage pregnancy and birth have declined significantly in the United States. These are welcome trends. Yet, teens in the United States continue to suffer from the highest birth rate and one of the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the industrialized world. Debate over the best way to help teens avoid, or reduce, their sexual risk-taking behavior has polarized many youth-serving professionals. On one side are those that support comprehensive sex education—education that promotes abstinence but includes information about contraception and condoms to build young people's knowledge, attitudes and skills for when they do become sexually active. On the other side are those that favor abstinence-only-until-marriage—programs that promote "abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard"[1] of behavior. Proponents of abstinence-only programs believe that providing information about the health benefits of condoms or contraception contradicts their message of abstinence-only and undermines its impact. As such, abstinence-only programs provide no information about contraception beyond failure rates.
....
Ten states made some form of evaluation results available for review. For Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington, Advocates was able to locate evaluation results from state Title V programs. For Missouri and Nebraska, Advocates located evaluation findings from at least one program among those funded through the state's Title V initiative. Finally, the evaluation of California's abstinence-only program was published in a peer-reviewed journal and readily available.
....
Evaluation of these 11 programs showed few short-term benefits and no lasting, positive impact. A few programs showed mild success at improving attitudes and intentions to abstain. No program was able to demonstrate a positive impact on sexual behavior over time. A description follows of short- and long-term impacts, by indicator.

Discussion
These evaluation results—from the first five-year cycle of funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage under Section 510(b) of Title V of the Social Security Act—reflect the results of other studies. In a 1994 review[5] of sex education programs, Kirby et al assessed all the studies available at the time of school-based, abstinence-only programs that had received peer review and that measured attitudes, intentions, and behavior. Kirby et al found that none of the three abstinence-only programs was effective in producing a statistically significant impact on sexual behaviors in program participants relative to comparisons. In a 1997 report for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Doug Kirby reviewed evaluations from six abstinence-only programs[6], again finding no program that produced a statistically significant change in sexual behavior. This was again confirmed in 2000[7], when another review by Kirby found no abstinence-only program that produced statistically significant changes in sexual behaviors among program youth relative to comparisons. This failure of abstinence-only programs to produce behavior change was among the central concerns expressed by some authors of the evaluations included in this document. [For examples of authors' remarks on behavior change, see quotations under Arizona, Florida, Missouri, and Pennsylvania in the state-by-state analyses that follow.] It is important to note that a great deal of research contradicts the belief that changes in knowledge and attitudes alone will necessarily result in behavior change.[8]

A few evaluators also noted the failure of abstinence-only programs to address the needs of sexually active youth. Survey data from many of the programs indicated that sexually experienced teens were enrolled in most of the abstinence-only programs studied. For example:

In Erie County, Pennsylvania, researchers found that 42 percent of the female participants were sexually active by the second year of the program.
In Clinton County, Pennsylvania, data collected from program participants in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades showed a dramatic increase in the proportion of program females who experienced first sexual intercourse over time (six, nine, and 30 percent, respectively, by grade).
In Minnesota, 12 percent of the eighth grade program participants were sexually active at posttest.
In Arizona, 19 percent of program participants were sexually active at follow-up. Concurrently, Arizona's evaluators found that youth's intent to pursue abstinence declined significantly at follow-up, regardless of whether the student took another abstinence-only class. Eighty percent of teens reported that they were likely to become sexually active by the time they were 20 years old.
Abstinence-only programs provide these youth with no information, other than abstinence, regarding how to protect themselves from pregnancy, HIV, and other STIs.

A third, related concern of evaluators was abstinence-only programs' failure to provide positive information about contraception and condoms. Evaluators noted more than once that programs' emphasis on the failure rates of contraception, including condoms, left youth ambivalent, at best, about using them.

In Clinton County, Pennsylvania, researchers noted that, of those participants that reported experiencing first sexual intercourse during ninth grade, only about half used any form of contraception.
Arizona's evaluation team found that program participants' attitudes about birth control became less favorable from pre- to posttest. They noted that this was probably a result of the "program's focus on the failure rates of contraceptives as opposed to their availability, use and access."
Table I follows on the next page. It includes information about the evaluation design, short-term impacts, and long-term impacts of the 11 programs summarized in this document. After Table I, individual state-by-state summaries follow, ordered alphabetically by state.

Conclusion
Abstinence-only programs show little evidence of sustained (long-term) impact on attitudes and intentions. Worse, they show some negative impacts on youth's willingness to use contraception, including condoms, to prevent negative sexual health outcomes related to sexual intercourse. Importantly, only in one state did any program demonstrate short-term success in delaying the initiation of sex; none of these programs demonstrates evidence of long-term success in delaying sexual initiation among youth exposed to the programs or any evidence of success in reducing other sexual risk-taking behaviors among participants.
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/pub...ions/index.htm

I tell you what. Since you feel so much concern for people who are not responsible with their behavior, you can donate your money for condoms to children who are under the care of their parents. Okay. Now everyone is happy.

Children under 18 are under the care of their parents, not me or the state. I am interested in lowering the number of abortions. If you don't want the child, then find a family who wants to adopt. Now you next post will be how horrible adoption rates are. I've heard it all before.

Preventing people from making mistakes is not my problem. If you think it's your problem then I suggest you doing something about it. Put your money where your mouth is. I've got my own family to take care of.

If one is truly interested in lowering the number of abortions, one obvious solution is to lower the number of UNWANTED PREGNANCIES THAT LEAD TO abortion.
That would seem obvious since we obviously have to educate our children about sex in our education system, and thus the question becomes how best to educate them to give fewer unwanted pregnancies.
Ignoring that simple solution is foolish.

In addition, since our governmental system will obviously make a minimum level of care for children (food / shelter / etc.) a concern, it seems obvious that if one is concerned about where their tax-dollar goes and preventing it from going to "other people's mistakes", that the best answer to how best to give sex education resulting in fewer unwanted pregnancies would also be a concern.

The best sexual education methodology to help minimize both concerns goes uncontested. As such, it seems obvious that abstinence only programs ARE NOT the best way to go, and the best program includes a variety of methodologies including a discussion on abstinence.

The roads lead to the issue of how to best educate our children in sex ed.
People that refuse to acknowledge the impact of sex ed on the issues they demonstrate concern on are acting in an irrational manner.

We've had sex education for years and it really is working isn't it. Yet, you will not allow the teaching of abstinence. Go figure.

1) I explicitly stated: "As such, it seems obvious that abstinence only programs ARE NOT the best way to go, and the best program includes a variety of methodologies including a discussion on abstinence."
Claiming that I "will not allow the teaching of abstinence" is stupid.
Alias, as usual, is not reading what he is responding to.

2) As I pointed out in a study that Alias probably also never bothered to read, there are a variety of locations that have attempted abstinence only programs. They "really aren't working either" if we judge "working" by the capability to prevent any teen-age pregnancies.

3) Neither teaching abstinence only nor a diverse teaching approach will result in NO teen-age pregnancies.
As such, the rational approach is to figure out which solution is better.
It should be obvious, if you actually look at the studies presented, that abstinence only programs ARE NOT the best way to go, and the best program includes a variety of methodologies including a discussion on abstinence."