Well, I'm not a liberal so I think that it is a safe bet that I won't.

So you are saying that it is a cultural issue. Why didn't you say so? That is one of the hardest things for a society to combat. I don't think that abstinence education can effectively override that. Though not a perfect solution, teaching about birth control would be more useful. (or better, teach both.)

What I'm REALLY saying is that these liberal news-sources that people such as you cite are NOT showing the whole picture.

First of all, they're lying. The teen birth rates in Texas did NOT "go up" after Abstinence Only classes began. The TRUTH is that they "declined slower" than most of the other states in America. Big difference.

Second, these "sources" are not taking into consideration racial & cultural pressures on these statistics. I used to live in a HIGHLY Hispanic city. Almost all the Hispanics I knew and worked with were great people - hard-working family-oriented folks. However, they like their alcohol way too much, and they fully expect teenagers to be extremely active sexually. These factors will greatly affect the teen pregnancy numbers in highly Hispanic states like Texas.


Bottom Line: Abstinence Only Sex Education works as well, or better than, any other kind of sex education.

I am in complete agreement.

I did correct my statement on that...

I will refer you back to the statistical set.

If you look at the data that went to 2000 and the set that went to 2002, the REST of the nation dropped another 5% nationally. Texas STOPPED DEAD just under 18%.

Honestly, that doesn't incline me to think that abstinence education is working. Admittedly I would need a year by year graph to properly analyze it.

I still say that abstinence AND birth control education is the best in the long run.

If the choices were exclusively abstinence or the pill, I think it would have to be the pill. You can't educate away a million years of instinct and you can't enforce abstinence except by locking them in a box and feeding them through a tube and end up with a severely repressed adult. When a young person's body says it's time, then it's time, and no amount of moralising will ever change that simple biological fact.

So our children have no self-control. They can only act out on what is instinct and have no ability to delay gratification. The are sub-human. So at what point does this change??? Is 18 the magical age or is it later?? If this is the case, if we as humans can only act out on our instictual impulses then why do we have laws against rape. Man is only do what has been instilled in him from millions of years of instinct.

I am sorry, but you give the children no credit. Why is it hard to believe that if presented with the facts, the true facts and not scare stories that our children cannot make informed decision regarding their conduct???

Day in and day out there are young people's bodies that are saying it is time, and day in and day out there are those who consciously decide to not engage in gratification. Some do so for religious reasons, some economical, others because they wish to better themselves by continuing their education. And some do it because they want that first time to be special. What are we to say to them????

dmk

I don't think that I could truly choose between the two. Abstainence or the pill puts the majority (BC) responsibility on only one of the couple.

The kids are capable of self-control, but promoting Abstainance only (AO) is a problem in the society that we currently live in. Kids are inundated with sexual messages and instant gratification. Is it any wonder that they behave the way that some do?

AO education runs counter to what society is telling them. Since the society is not about to suddenly change direction, we have to look at this in a reaslistic way.