I asked the question of what is wrong with abstinence.

What I got was all kinds of answers all of which made sense but still did not answer the question.

The greatest means of preventing pregnancies is to NOT become involved in sexual conduct at all. Yes I understand that mankind is a sexual animal and a social animal and driven by the biological means to reproduce the forces become very strong.

Yet no one is asking for ignorance. The sex education programs in America are divided into three aspects of our government and society.

National Policy……Abstinence.
State Policy……….Sex Education.
Family Policy……..Values.

Combined the three can be a winning combination. Any one standing alone is bound to fail. The children of this nation must abstain from sex for many reasons not the least of which is the health, both emotional and physical of our young children.

Sex Education in this country is built upon a tripod. Any one leg fails and the chair falls to the ground.

There is nothing wrong with abstinence and the message that it brings to children, Families and communities. Just as Abstinence from drugs is a must to insure the health of a nation, so is the abstinence from premature sexual activity. It is a sound message. Perhaps not a message people want to hear until it is their 12 or 13 year old daughter engaging in sexual activity, then suddenly it makes a whole lot of sense and I would dare say the preferred method by nearly all moms and dads everywhere.

Well your basically asking teenagers to give up a very powerful driving force in our biology. Can it work? Sure, but no where near 100% of the time. When you combine this kind of idealism with something with something that has such long term consequences as sex you naturally run into trouble.

No force in the universe will ever stop teenagers from having sex. Especially in those years you have to start taking off the training wheels of life and getting kids to get ready for the big decisions they will have to make in the future. Sex is certainly part of that. In fact, when I was in school and they promoted abstinence our reaction was pretty much the same all around. Go to hell you hypocritical old bastards.

If teenagers are able to physically reproduce, they need to be educated about the process and how to take steps to watch out for themselves. Its in every sense about becoming an adult. Your bodies are now able to create life, but um…don’t worry about that till societies arbitrarily decided(recently decided mind you) age of 18 when you will instinctively know how to handle the situation. Right.

Also, have you ever seen anything LESS erotic than the materials presented in a sex ed class? God, if that doesn’t put them off sex for at least a year I don’t know what else will.

OTOH, you could fairly accuse it of bordering on scare tactics at times, by being quite explicit about some of the consequences of sex. But their success rate is quite good, if measured by the lack of STD’s and pregnancies. Doesn’t mean the participants aren’t having sex, but they are sure as hell not ignorant of the potential consequences when they do.

Spears? Heh. Who cares?

I think the reason so many condemn abstinence only programs is that it’s dangerous to keep kids ignorant.

To be kind this holiday season, I’ll merely say I believe this is a common misperception, Amanda, likely driven by a dislike of abstinence or the underlying attitude behind counsel of it. There is no reason why people who are counseled to abstain need ever be ignorant. Abstinence never implies, much less indicates, ignorance. I certainly wasn’t keeping my two girls ignorant. They had plenty of questions, beginning when I started staying overnight at Mom’s, or her at my home, when the younger girl was age five. And I answered every question they ever asked. They could always talk to me about anything and everything.

And what’s wrong with abstinence?

Nothing, Somebody. It worked fine with my two goddaughters. They, unlike people here and elsewhere, now, were very grown-up as teenagers then. They had contempt for those who were…

I’ve never understood the resistance to this message

… children of all ages who cannot stand to be told “no,” and degenerates who delight in pushing the bounds of behavior, ideally destroying them.

Okay, being realistic, there are worse mothers, for example: the ones who physically abuse their children. And the ones who kill their children.

Still, the only reason people would read her book would be as a “what not to do” guide – and that was even before the 16-year-old got pregnant.

Life is about a lot of things, but it ultimately is about making choices. Looking back on my own life, I’ve made some good ones and some lousy ones and find that the latter choices often were made without sufficient information.

We’re talking about teenagers here, and just yesterday I wrote about an 18-year-old from Alabama who made some very bad choices not because she wasn’t intelligent, but because . . . well, she was 18 and her chaperones abrogated their responsibilities, as well.

My big problem with abstinence-only programs in general is that they are not about teaching kids to make good choices but foisting one choice on them. Study after study shows that they don’t work and it’s quite obvious why.

Unfortunately, teenagers are prone to doing exactly what their parents tell them not to. A lot of them are going to have sex, whether we like it or not. Abstinence is the safest (and smartest) option, there’s no arguing that. But ignorance is what leads to 15-year-old kids getting pregnant or contracting a disease. If they don’t know the dangers of sex and how to prevent or deal with them, how can we expect them to make an informed decision about whether to have sex at all?

My high school health class took a very balanced approach (I think) to sex ed. The teacher explained the basic biology of making babies, he taught us the various symptoms of STD’s, we learned about condoms and the pill, and he stressed regularly that the only way to be 100% safe was to abstain.

I’ve never understood the resistance to this message other then it seems to be steeped in religion rather then secularism which we all know is the goal of the left.

Abstaining from sex always seems to be a rationally more superior message then teaching 13 year olds the proper way to have sex.

Those opposed to this message seem to me to have gone to great lengths to do anything just the opposite of what religious practices teach.

In this case. NOT having sex pretty much guarantees not having babies…..Duh. Sorry you guys on the left cant quite grasp that message.