Conservatism reigns in Croatia

Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - Abstinence education is celebrating a legal victory in Croatia. Roger Kiska of the Alliance Defense Fund says the case was particularly dangerous because it involved a charter body of the Council of Europe. That body polices compliance with the European Social Charter -- a binding human-rights document on all states within the Council of Europe.

The case involved a lawsuit against the Christian nation of Croatia, which Kiska says has a low rate of teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. The suit alleged that the country was not teaching appropriate sexual education in their schools because they focused on abstinence.

"So the potential of this case was to completely liberalize sexual education throughout Europe," he explains. "And thankfully the committee agreed with our arguments, agreed with the arguments of Croatia, that because of the cultural sovereignty of Croatia, because of the low prevalence of sexual transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies, obviously the program was working" the attorney notes.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=660524

Abstinence, yes, but what about marriage?

Carolyn Moynihan

The abstinence-until-marriage movement in the United States has been a positive and courageous response to the sexual revolution. As the basis for sex education it has met with determined opposition because of adult scepticism, and probably dislike of the very idea of abstinence. Now a sociologist who is also an Evangelical Christian is suggesting another reason for reviewing the way Christians promote abstinence.

…[A]fter years of studying the sexual behavior and family decision-making of young Americans, I've come to the conclusion that Christians have made much ado about sex but are becoming slow and lax about marriage—that more significant, enduring witness to Christ's sacrificial love for his bride. Americans are taking flight from marriage. We are marrying later, if at all, and having fewer children.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/abstinence_yes_but_what_about_marriage/

'I need to wait'

Christopher Blunt

Surprisingly good messages about teenage sex and parenthood surface in an MTV series.
Culturally conservative messages about premarital sex have surfaced in an unusual place: MTV. The music-television network’s new reality series, 16 and Pregnant, follows sixteen-year-old American girls through five to seven months of their pregnancies and the experiences of young motherhood.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/i_need_to_wait/

Simmering sex-ed battle heats up

In 2007, the group (Free to Be) received approximately $540,000 in federal funding from the Community-Based Abstinence Education Program under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to federal tax forms filled out by the nonprofit.

To receive that money, groups must abide by federal guidelines that include teaching “that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity . . . that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects . . . that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society.”

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090607/ARTICLES/906079971/1350?Title=Sex-ed-battle-heats-up

Fewer U.S. teens report being sexually active

By Anne Harding

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The percentage of U.S. teens having sex showed a "dramatic" drop between 1992 and 2002, while there was a similarly striking rise in the use of contraception by those who were sexually active, a new analysis of national US data shows.However, very recent increases in teen pregnancy -- after a decline lasting more than a decade -- show that more work needs to be done to help improve teens' reproductive health, according to Dr. Jennifer Manlove and colleagues from Child Trends in Washington, D.C.

http://health.yahoo.com/news/reuters/us_teens_sexual.html

Abstinence ed 'outperforms' comprehensive sex ed

Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow -

According to a research analyst, comprehensive sex education does not outperform abstinence education. Irene Ericksen of the Institute for Research and Evaluation says that media reports continually claim that abstinence education is a failure and that comprehensive sex ed is the only way to reduce teen pregnancies and promote safe-sex practices. She adds that they continually site a federal study that is riddled with myths and did not find abstinence education effective.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=533758

Obama would ax abstinence-only funding

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow -

If Congress approves President Obama's budget requests, there will be no more federal funding of abstinence-only education programs. Barack Obama has recommended completely zeroing out Title V abstinence programs to states, as well as abstinence education programs to community-based organizations (CBAE) and replacing them with more than $100 million for contraceptive-based sex-education programs. The massive omnibus bill signed by the president had already reduced funding to abstinence programs by $14 million.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=522676

NC's 'Healthy Youth Act' healthy in name only

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown - OneNewsNow

The vast majority of North Carolina school districts teach abstinence until marriage -- but one family advocate in the Tar Heel State says a backdoor approach is under way in the legislature to push an agenda that promotes promiscuity.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=466794

NC keeps abstinence education

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

While some states are dropping abstinence education, others will continue to use it -- including North Carolina. School districts can teach either abstinence or comprehensive sex education, the latter of which Jere Royall of the North Carolina Family Policy Council believes encourages promiscuity. He tells OneNewsNow that abstinence education has proven itself.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=449216

Obama asked to keep abstinence education funding

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

The campaign to retain federal funding for abstinence programs in public schools continues.The Obama administration supports what is called "comprehensive sex education," which Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association believes encourages young people to be sexually intimate. She fears losing federal abstinence funding but notes her organization has found that many lawmakers, when informed of the truth about abstinence education, will listen.

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Abstinence-education funding likely to get the axe

Charlie Butts and Marty Cooper - OneNewsNow - 1/20/2009

Conservatives in Congress are trying to plan ways to keep funding for abstinence education while working in a liberal atmosphere.

In an article in the Spectator, David Bass of the John Locke Foundation believes Washington has a phobia of abstinence education. Funding for it runs out on June 1, and Bass believes the new president will then support abstinence-plus programs.

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The long-term consequences of the hook-up culture

By Colleen Carroll Campbell

Once confined to dorm-room gossip sessions, salacious details about the hook-up culture on today's college campuses have become fodder for serious sociological analysis.

No fewer than four books on the topic have been published this year alone. Among them are sociologist Kathleen Bogle's unflinching investigation of campus sexual norms in Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Laura Sessions Stepp's alarming analysis of promiscuity's emotional costs in Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both.

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Sex Education Best Kept at Home

Bioethicist Presents Chastity as Love's Defender
MEXICO CITY, JAN. 15, 2009 (Zenit.org)

Sex education is chastity education -- and these are lessons best taught in the family, said an expert at the 6th World Meeting of Families. Italian Doctor María Luisa Di Pietro, associate bioethics professor at Rome's Sacred Heart University and president of the Science and Life Association, affirmed this during her address today to some 10,000 participants in the family meeting theological congress.

Continue: http://www.zenit.org/article-24789?l=english

'Safe-sex' ed not working - abstinence ed necessary

Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 1/15/2009

A pro-family advocate says a recent study on teen births in the U.S. makes the case for more abstinence education. The latest Centers for Disease Control study on teen birth rates in the U.S. showed a slight uptick for the year 2006. Mississippi led the nation in the percentage of teens giving birth, while New Hampshire had the fewest.

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Abstinence - more than just a pledge

Allie Mohler - OneNewsNow - 1/9/2009

A leader in the Southern Baptist Convention is speaking out about a recent study that said teenagers who take abstinence pledges are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who don't take such pledges.

Late last month, the federal government released the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which surveyed around 11,000 students in grades 7-12 over a period of years. According to the study, researchers found that more than half of the young people became sexually active before marriage, regardless of whether they had taken an abstinence pledge.

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